he Hopper, but he
was still to be catalogued among the impenitent; and as he moved southward
through the Commonwealth of Maine he was so oppressed by his poverty, as
contrasted with the world's abundance, that he lifted forty thousand
dollars in a neat bundle from an express car which Providence had
sidetracked, apparently for his personal enrichment, on the upper waters
of the Penobscot. Whereupon he began perforce playing his old game of
artful dodging, exercising his best powers as a hopper and skipper. Forty
thousand dollars is no inconsiderable sum of money, and the success of
this master stroke of his career was not to be jeopardized by careless
moves. By craftily hiding in the big woods and making himself agreeable
to isolated lumberjacks who rarely saw newspapers, he arrived in due
course on Manhattan Island, where with shrewd judgment he avoided the
haunts of his kind while planning a future commensurate with his new
dignity as a capitalist.

He spent a year as a diligent and faithful employee of a garage which
served a fashionable quarter of the metropolis; then, animated by a worthy
desire to continue to lead an honest life, he purchased a chicken farm
fifteen miles as the crow flies from Center Church, New Haven, and boldly
opened a bank account in that academic center in his newly adopted name of
Charles S. Stevens, of Happy Hill Farm. Feeling the need of companionship,
he married a lady somewhat his junior, a shoplifter of the second class,
whom he had known before the vigilance of the metropolitan police
necessitated his removal to the Far West. Mrs. Stevens's inferior talents
as a petty larcenist had led her into many difficulties, and she
gratefully availed herself of The Hopper's offer of his heart and hand.

They had added to their establishment a retired yegg who had lost an eye
by the premature popping of the "soup" (i.e., nitro-glycerin) poured into
the crevices of a country post-office in Missouri. In offering shelter to
Mr. James Whitesides, _alias_ "Humpy" Thompson, The Hopper's motives had
not been wholly unselfish, as Humpy had been entrusted with the herding of
poultry in several penitentiaries and was familiar with the most advanced
scientific thought on chicken culture.

The roadster was headed toward his home and The Hopper contemplated it in
the deepening dusk with greedy eyes. His labors in the New York garage had
familiarized him with automobiles, and while he was not ignorant of the