Spokesly would fail to get away from himself after all. It is not so easy to be an outlaw as it appears, when one has been one of the respectable middle classes for so long. The seaman is as carefully indexed as a convict, and has very little more chance in ordinary times of getting away. Mr. Spokesly knew that and had no such notion in his head. What he did meditate was some indirect retirement from the scene, when a pocketful of loose cash would enable him to effect a desirable man[oe]uvre in a dignified manner, and he would have no need to forfeit his own opinion of himself. The temperament of the crook may sometimes be innate, but in most cases it is the result of a long apprenticeship. Mr. Spokesly wanted money, he wanted a command, he even wanted romance; but he did not want to be wicked. He could no more get away from Haverstock Hill, North West London, than could Mrs. Dainopoulos with all her romantical equipment. Therein lay the essential difference between himself and Mr. Dainopoulos, who also desired respectability, but who had in reserve a native facility for swift and secret chicanery. Mr. Dainopoulos slipped in and out of the law as easily as a lizard through the slats of a railing. Mr. Spokesly could not do that, he discovered to his own surprise and perhaps regret. Unknown to himself, the austere integrity of distant ancestors and the hard traditions of an ancient calling combined to limit his sphere of action. The reason why many of us remain merely useful and poverty-stricken nonentities is that we can serve no other purpose in the world. We lack the flare for spectacular exploits; and even the war, which was to cleanse and revitalize the world, has left us very much as we were, the victims of integrity.