to which he was entitled. The money was split between five, the sixth
share going to what was known as the Gang Account, a common fund upon
which all could draw in moments of necessity.

The Gang Fund was not so described in the books of the bank. It was
known as "Account B." The expenses of operations were usually paid out
of the colonel's private account, and credited to him when the share-out
came. He was absolute master of his own balance, but it required three
signatures to extract a cheque from Account B. One of the objects of the
colonel's visit was to reduce this number to two, the death of Solomon
White having removed one of the signatories.

He returned to Pinto, apparently not too well satisfied.

"There's quite a lot of money in the Gang Account," he said. "I've
struck off Solly's name, and your signature and mine, or mine and
Crewe's, is sufficient now."

"Or mine and Crewe's, I suppose?" suggested Pinto, and the colonel
smiled.

"Oh, no," said he. "I'm not a great believer in the indispensability of
any man, but I'm making the signature of Dan Boundary indispensable
before that account is touched."

They walked back through the park, and the colonel expounded his
philosophy of wrong living.

"The man who runs an honest business and mixes it with a little crooked
work is bound to be caught," he said, "because his mind is concentrated
on the unpaying side of the game. You've got to run a crook business in
an honest way if you want to escape the law and pay big dividends. They
call our system blackmail, but it ain't. A blackmailer asks for
something for nothing, and he's bound to get caught sooner or later. We
offer spot cash for all the things we steal, and that baffles the law.
And we're not the only people in London, or in England, or in the world,
who are pulling bargains by scaring the fellow we buy from. It is done
every day in the City of London; it is done every day by the trusts that
control the little shops in the suburbs; it is done even by the big
proprietary companies that tell a miserable little tradesman that, if he
doesn't stop selling one article, they won't supply him with theirs.
Living, Pinto, is preying. The only mistake a crook ever makes is when
he goes outside of his legitimate business and lets some other
consideration than the piling up of money influence him."

"How do you mean?" asked Pinto wearily. He hated the colonel when he was
in this communicative mood of his.

"We