or our color or
previous condition of servitude."

Archie had always enjoyed the ease of good inns, and being in a
comfortable house with his own effects at hand, he might have forgotten
that he was a fugitive if it hadn't been for the propinquity of his
companion, who was addressing himself with elaborate ceremonial to the
preparation of his bath. The Governor's bag contained an assortment of
silk shirts and underwear, a dress suit, a handsome set of toilet
articles, and as Archie scrutinized them approvingly the Governor
smiled, stepped to the door, and locked it.

"The property of a fastidious gentleman of breeding, you would say! You
would never dream that thing has a false bottom!"

Archie would not have dreamed it, but the Governor dumped the remaining
contents on the bed, fumbled in the bottom of the bag, lifted a
concealed flap, and drew out a long fold of leather.

"You might think it a surgeon's pocket-kit, son, but you would be
greatly in error. Drills, jimmies, even a light hammer--and here's a
little contrivance that has been known to pluck the secret from most
intricate combinations--my own invention. The common yegg habit of
pouring an explosive fluid into the cracks of a strong box is obsolete.
I hold that such a procedure is vulgar, besides being calculated to make
an ugly noise when not perfectly muffled. By George, Archie, it occurs
to me that you must have left your kit behind you in that absurd drug
store at the Harbor! It is just as well that you are no longer
encumbered with those playthings. Trust the Governor in future. I'm
yearning for a cool grapefruit, so bestir yourself."

"I want to learn all the modern improvements," said Archie, fingering
the burglar tools. "I've been playing the game wrong--decidedly wrong!"

"My favorite pupil!" cried the Governor, from the tub in which he was
already rolling and splashing. "You shall be my successor when I pass on
to other fields. Destiny has thrown you in my path for this very
purpose. You will rank high among the crooks of all history, the king of
the underworld, feared and loved by the great comradeship who prey upon
the world by night!"

Archie felt very humble under these promises and prophecies, and
wondered whether there was really deep down in his soul some moral
obliquity that the acute master crook had detected and responded to.
There had been clergymen and philanthropists among Archie's forebears,
but never murderer or thief, and he