These objects went through varied phases exactly as more pretentious satellites would have done. It would be difficult to describe my feelings as I watched them from the car windows. I am prone to think, at the present writing, that this lost booty, waxing and waning under my eyes, planted in my nature those first seeds of regret which finally grew into a reformation. I recall a conversation that I had with Markham while I sat with my eye at the lower end of the telescope, watching for stray asteroids. The millionaires had given me to understand that I was not in their set. Circumstances over which they had no control had brought us together within the narrow confines of the car, but no social barriers had been leveled. Occasionally the novelty of our situation, and the consequent excitement, would cause one or other of the wealthy gentleman to forget the gulf that yawned between us. This attitude of the magnate afforded me a good deal of innocent enjoyment. They had left social prestige, no less than their bank accounts, behind them, and what little collateral they had had upon their persons was now "satelliting" about the car. The line they drew between themselves and me, in their thoughtful moments, was a distinction without much of a difference. Markham, I remember, was munching a sandwich, contrived out of two crackers and a slice of tinned beef. "Did you never reflect, Mr. Munn," said he, "upon the evil of your past?" "When a man writes books which are mainly drawn from his own experience, Mr. Markham," said I, "he has to go into his past pretty exhaustively." "Ah, yes, I was forgetting about the books. Were you not horrified with the results of your retrospection?" "Horrified? Well, yes, here and there. I lost a big haul once through the breaking of a jimmy, and I was horrified to think how any dealer in burglar’s kits could have foisted such an unreliable instrument upon a well-meaning cracksman." Markham stared at me dazedly. "I have set down the experience in Chapter One of ’Forty Ways for Cracking Safes,’" I proceeded, "and one of the first of my ten rules for success in any safe-cracking job was this: Be sure that your kit is reliable, and without flaws." "Mr. Munn, Mr. Munn!" whispered Markham hoarsely. "Think of the people from whom you have taken property dishonestly." "I never think of them but to wish that I had been able to relieve them of more." "This is awful!" muttered Markham. "You really exult over what you have done." He would have started down the iron stairs had I not restrained him with a word. "Let me ask you something, Mr. Markham," said I. "Last fall, bread went to ten cents a loaf because the wheat market was cornered—and a man by the name of Markham did the cornering. The people who had to put up that extra five cents missed it more than did those from whom I took five hundred dollars." Markham coughed. "Any asteroids in sight?" he inquired absently.