don't say that; don't use such an expression even
in jest!" protested Pinkerton.

"Do you never do anything you're ashamed of?" I inquired.

"No," says he, rolling his eyes. "Why? I'm sometimes sorry afterwards,
when it pans out different from what I figured. But I can't see what I
would want to be ashamed for."

I sat a while considering with admiration the simplicity of my friend's
character. Then I sighed. "Do you know, Jim, what I'm sorriest for?"
said I. "At this rate, I can't be best man at your marriage."

"My marriage!" he repeated, echoing the sigh. "No marriage for me now.
I'm going right down to-night to break it to her. I think that's what's
shaken me all day. I feel as if I had had no right (after I was engaged)
to operate so widely."

"Well, you know, Jim, it was my doing, and you must lay the blame on
me," said I.

"Not a cent of it!" he cried. "I was as eager as yourself, only not so
bright at the beginning. No; I've myself to thank for it; but it's a
wrench."

While Jim departed on his dolorous mission, I returned alone to the
office, lit the gas, and sat down to reflect on the events of that
momentous day: on the strange features of the tale that had been so far
unfolded, the disappearances, the terrors, the great sums of money; and
on the dangerous and ungrateful task that awaited me in the immediate
future.

It is difficult, in the retrospect of such affairs, to avoid attributing
to ourselves in the past a measure of the knowledge we possess to-day.
But I may say, and yet be well within the mark, that I was consumed that
night with a fever of suspicion and curiosity; exhausted my fancy in
solutions, which I still dismissed as incommensurable with the facts;
and in the mystery by which I saw myself surrounded, found a precious
stimulus for my courage and a convenient soothing draught for
conscience. Even had all been plain sailing, I do not hint that I should
have drawn back. Smuggling is one of the meanest of crimes, for by that
we rob a whole country pro rata, and are therefore certain to impoverish
the poor: to smuggle opium is an offence particularly dark, since it
stands related not so much to murder, as to massacre. Upon all these
points I was quite clear; my sympathy was all in arms against my
interest; and had not Jim been involved, I could have dwelt almost with
satisfaction on the idea of my failure. But Jim, his whole fortune, and
his marriage, depended upon my success; and I pref