ce and sound the alarm.
When M'Kain's on the Bridge was broken, the Deacon found the false keys;
it was Smith who carried off such poor booty as was found. And though
the master suggested the attack upon Bruce's shop, knowing full well
the simplicity of the lock, he lingered at the Vintner's over a game of
hazard, and let the man pouch a sumptuous booty.

Even the onslaught upon the Excise Office, which cost his life, was
contrived with appalling clumsiness. The Deacon of the Wrights' Guild,
who could slash wood at his will, who knew the artifice of every lock
in the city, let his men go to work with no better implements than the
stolen coulter of a plough and a pair of spurs. And when they tackled
the ill omened job, Brodie was of those who brought failure upon it.
Long had they watched the door of the Excise; long had they studied the
habits of its clerks; so that they went to work in no vain spirit of
experiment. Nor on the fatal night did they force an entrance until they
had dogged the porter to his home. Smith and Brown ransacked the place
for money, while Brodie and Andrew Ainslie remained without to give a
necessary warning. Whereupon Ainslie was seized with fright, and Brodie,
losing his head, called off the others, so that six hundred pounds
were left, that might have been an easy prey. Smith, indignant at the
collapse of the long-pondered design, laid the blame upon his master,
and they swung, as Brodie's grim spirit of farce suggested, for four
pounds apiece.

The humours of the situation were all the Deacon's own. He dressed the
part in black; his respectability grinned behind a vizard; and all the
while he trifled nonchalantly with a pistol. Breaking the silence with
snatches from The Beggar's Opera, he promised that all their lead should
turn to gold, christened the coulter and the crow the Great and Little
Samuel, and then went off to drink and dice at the Vintner's. How could
anger prevail against this undying gaiety? And if Smith were peevish at
failure, he was presently reconciled, and prepared once more to die for
his Deacon.

Even after escape, the amateur is still apparent. True, he managed the
trip to Flushing with his ancient extravagance; true, he employed all
the juggleries of the law to prevent his surrender at Amsterdam. But
he knew not the caution of the born criminal, and he was run to earth,
because he would still write to his friends like a gentleman. His
letters, during this nightmare