And now the time has come to close my reminiscences. To continue them would be apt to lead me into drivel, an adjunct I have tried to avoid. I make no attempt at justifying my work—though as a literary production it is beneath criticism—being quite aware that many will consider my resuscitating the past an act of bravado. In this I cannot agree with them, for though guilty of a portion of the offence with which I was charged, and which I unhesitatingly admitted, I am happy to know that cruel circumstances prevented my refuting at the time a fraction of the thousand and one lies that were laid to my charge. Not the most trivial incident appears to have passed unnoticed, and the omission to pay for a pennyworth of bloaters has been since transformed into a crime, and carried, as only cowards can, to quarters most likely to injure me. And one scurrilous society journal, notorious for its “enterprise” rather than its “truth,” had the impudence to hint that I had made money at cards by foul play (I who have lost a fortune by gambling); but this I attribute to personal malice, and in return for my once publishing a scheme of a shady nature projected by its owner. This precious prospectus is in my possession, and at the service of any one with a taste for the perusal of rascally documents. I had indeed intended publishing it, but ultimately decided not to add to this volume of horrors, on the principle that “two blacks don’t make a white.” Whether it sees the daylight at the next general election is another affair. The marvel is I have not been associated with the “Clapham Junction Mystery,” or discovered to be the chief of the Russian Nihilists. These remarks are not incapable of corroboration. The link then missing has since been found; and more than one lawyer, and a certain high official, know the truth; and the only deterrent to a very thorough _résumé_ of the case is the pain it would cause to others. For my own part, I should not object, and if any shadow of the “possibility” of the truth lurking in my assertion is to be extracted, it may commend itself by the publicity I have given to my experiences—a frankness not usually associated with _unmitigated_ guilt. But after all, is it worth it? For my part, I value the world’s patronage as much as I do its odium. I’ve tested and accurately appraised both!