There's a fellow who does things by
halves; he's only half gone to the bad; and look at the
difference between him and us! He's under the thumb of a
villainous money-lender; we are solvent citizens. He's taken to
drink; we're as sober as we are solvent. His pals are beginning
to cut him; our difficulty is to keep the pal from the door.
Enfin, he begs or borrows, which is stealing by halves; and we
steal outright and are done with it. Obviously ours is the more
honest course. Yet I'm not sure, Bunny, but we're doing the
thing by halves ourselves!"
"Why? What more could we do?" I exclaimed in soft derision,
looking round, however, to make sure that we were not overheard.
"What more," said Raffles. "Well, murder--for one thing."
"Rot!"
"A matter of opinion, my dear Bunny; I don't mean it for rot.
I've told you before that the biggest man alive is the man who's
committed a murder, and not yet been found out; at least he ought
to be, but he so very seldom has the soul to appreciate himself.
Just think of it! Think of coming in here and talking to the
men, very likely about the murder itself; and knowing you've done
it; and wondering how they'd look if THEY knew! Oh, it would be
great, simply great! But, besides all that, when you were caught
there'd be a merciful and dramatic end of you.
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