So, with the first spoil in his pocket--for Burke was the foremost man, and got the money--he and his friend betook themselves to Tanners' Close, keeping, no doubt, in remembrance, the words of the students, that they would be welcome again. Nor can we have any doubt that when they arrived at home, after a day of such novel and ingenious, and, we may surely add, triumphant performance, they would celebrate, with the women, in an orgie debauch of hours, this great event of a new birth of hope, the realisation of which would elevate them even to an upper caste among the humble inhabitants of Portsburgh. But even they themselves did not know what progeny would come of this cockatrice's egg, laid in the dark corner of the habitation of sin. Our story would not have carried that moral, which is the eternal burden of all histories of crime, if the thought of murder had come to them without that prelusive conciliation, under the condition of which the devil is permitted to arrive at his greatest achievements. Much, even at this early stage, was made of the conduct of Knox and his assistants, but, we think, with little justice to these men. Why did they not ask those dark and suspicious-looking ruffians, who did not belong to their regular staff, where they got the object thus brought to them? The answer appears to be satisfactory, whatever might be thought of their subsequent defence and explanations. There was nothing here to excite suspicion, except, as it was said, the absence of certain marks often made by resurrectionists in their process of working, but the exception went for nothing in the face of an assertion that such marks are seldom to be seen; and then, as for the asserted naturalness--if we may use the expression of an inquiry of such a kind--it was said, and may be repeated, that that which appears to be natural is not always expedient. We are here to keep in view that the medical men were aware that they were dealing in smuggled goods, the participation on their part being, as they conceived, justified by the necessities of their profession; and when was it ever known that the dealer with a smuggler questioned him as to the whereabouts and the manner of his contravention of the laws? It does not need even to be remarked, that to discourage is not the best way to lay the foundation of a new bargain; nay, there was weight in the observation, that the prudent avoidance of such interrogation had become a habit, and though they were perfectly aware that bodies had been brought to them which had never been in graves, and, consequently, that there existed a practice of sale and purchase between the men devoted to this profession, and the friends or distant relatives of the dead, they still considered that all such cases were covered by the claims of science, whereby society got returned to it, in the shape of an increased knowledge and skill of cure, that which had been taken from it against the sanction of human affections.