he warning you have had, if you wish to avoid a more serious stain in
the future. The case is dismissed."

With which elegant peroration the magistrate, much relieved in his own
mind, took up his newspaper, and Reginald was hurried once more down
those steep stairs a free man.

"Slice of luck for you, young shaver!" said the friendly policeman,
slipping off the handcuffs.

"Regular one of Sniff's little games!" said another standing near; "he
always lets his little fish go when he's landed his big ones! To my
mind it's a risky business. Never mind."

"You can go when you like now," said the policeman to Reginald; "and
whenever we come across a shilling for a drink we'll drink your health,
my lad."

Reginald saw the hint, and handed the policeman one of his last
shillings. Then, buttoning his coat against the cold winter wind, he
walked out, a free man, into the street.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

THE DARKEST HOUR BEFORE THE DAWN.

If the worshipful magistrate flattered himself that the reprimand he had
addressed to Reginald that afternoon would move his hearer to self-
abasement or penitence, he had sadly miscalculated the power of his own
language.

Every word of that "caution" had entered like iron into the boy's soul,
and had roused in him every evil passion of which his nature was
capable. A single word of sympathy or kindly advice might have won him
heart and soul. But those stinging, brutal sentences goaded him almost
to madness, and left him desperate.

What was the use of honesty, of principle, of conscientiousness, if they
were all with one accord to rise against him and degrade him?

What was the use of trying to be better than others when the result was
an infamy which, had he been a little more greedy or a little less
upright, he might have avoided?

What was the use of conscious innocence and unstained honour, when they
could not save him from a sense of shame of which no convicted felon
could know the bitterness?

It would go out to all the world that Reginald Cruden, the suspected
swindler, had been "let off" for lack of evidence after three days'
imprisonment. The victims of the Corporation would read it, and regret
the failure of justice to overtake the man who had robbed them. His
father's old county friends would read it, and shake their heads over
poor Cruden's prodigal. The Wilderham fellows would read it, and set
him down as one more who had gone to the bad. Young Gedge wou