In this last sentence Bandy summed up the whole question of honor among thieves, and for this reason I have told the foregoing at some length. The repentance of a thief rarely, if ever, includes restitution. This statement anyhow applies to the veterans. With the younger men it is somewhat otherwise, and then usually through the administrations of the prison chaplain. But after having served a prison term for the first time the young crook adopts the sophistry and cynicism of his elders in crime. The only time that a thief feels regret for his misdeeds is when the latter has been fruitless, or when the proceeds have been lost to him. What I have said about crooks not peaching on each other does not apply to the professional stool-pigeon, or "mouthpiece," who, by the way, is part and parcel of every police force in every city and town in this country and abroad. But these fellows can hardly be classed as genuine crooks, at least in the great majority of instances. They are rather the Pariahs of the Under World--hated, despised and tolerated for precisely the same reason that curs are allowed to roam through the streets. It goes without saying that as long as the "mouthpiece" forms an integral part of the police system of civilization, so long will there be a real, although not admitted, alliance between the Powers that Prey and the Powers that Rule, with an incidental weakening and demoralization of the latter. Finally, there are times and seasons in which the Under World of its own volition gives up an offender. But these occasions are rare, and only when it is felt that the individual must be sacrificed for the good of the community. Usually there is a political pact in these rare happenings. JOSIAH FLYNT--AN APPRECIATION BY ALFRED HODDER What first struck me was his prodigality in talk. He scattered treasures of anecdote and observation as Aladdin of the wonderful lamp orders his slave to scatter gold pieces. The trait is not common amongst men of letters; they are the worst company in the world; they are taking, not giving; if they have not a notebook and a pencil brutally before you in their hands, they have a notebook and pencil agilely at work in their heads; your pleasure is their business; the word that comes from their lips is but a provocative to gain one more word from you; the smile that answers your smile is but a grimace; and their good stories, until they have been published, are locked behind their lips like books in a safe-deposit box. Flynt had no safe-deposit box for his good stories, and no gift for silence; the anecdotes in his books are amazing; the details of just how he got them are still more amazing; he never learned to use up his material, to economize, and he was more amazing than his material.