you know,
but in the old days I was proud of my little business and my good
name. It hurt me like hell to go under. It was bad enough when people
were kind. Sometimes they weren't."

"I know," Dauncey murmured sympathetically.

"My scars are there," Jacob went on. "If I had such a thing, Dick, I
should say that they had burned their way into my soul. I haven't made
any plans. Don't think that I am going to embark upon any senseless
scheme of revenge--but if this promise of great wealth is fulfilled, I
have some sort of a fancy for using it as a scourge to cruelty, or for
giving the unfortunate a leg up where it's deserved. There are one or
two enterprises already shaping themselves in my mind, which might be
brought to a successful conclusion."

"Enterprises?" Dauncey repeated a little vaguely.

Jacob laid his hand upon his friend's shoulder. There was a strange
light in his eyes.

"Dick," he said, "you'd think I was a commonplace sort of fellow
enough, wouldn't you? So I am, in a way, and yet I've got something
stirring in my blood of the fever which sent Sam out to the far west
of America, more for the sheer love of going than for any hope of
making a fortune. I've lived an everyday sort of life, but I've had
my dreams."

"We're not going around the world treasure hunting, or anything of
that sort, are we?" Dauncey asked anxiously.

"All the treasure hunting we shall do," Jacob replied, with a little
thrill in his tone, "will be on the London pavements. All the
adventures which the wildest buccaneers the world has ever known might
crave are to be found under the fogs of this wonderful city. We shan't
need to travel far in the body, Dick. A little office somewhere in the
West End, a little ground bait which I know about, and the sharks of
the world will come stealing around us. There are seven or eight
million people in London, Dick. A detective I once knew--kind of
thoughtful chap he was--once told me that on a moderate computation
there were twenty-five thousand of them who would commit murder
without hesitation if they could get their hand deep enough into their
neighbour's pocket."

"Talking through his hat," Dauncey muttered.

"That is what we shall find out. Only remember this, Richard. I am
convinced that I possess in some degree that sixth sense the French
criminologist talked about,--the sense for Adventure. I've had to keep
my nose to the grindstone, worse luck, but there have been times when
I'v