“Bravo!” exclaimed Lafcadio, more and more amused. “If, added to that, he is a fellow who can lend an ear to the demon of curiosity, I think your pupil will be done to a turn.”
Progressing in this way by leaps and bounds, each in turn overtaking and overtaken by the other, one would have likened them to two schoolboys playing leap-frog.
Julius. First of all, I imagine him training himself. He is an adept at committing all sorts of petty thefts.
Lafcadio. I’ve often wondered why more aren’t committed. It’s true that the opportunity of committing them usually occurs only to people who are free from want and without any particular hankerings.
Julius. Free from want! Yes, I told you so. But the only opportunities that tempt him are the ones that demand some skill—some cunning.
Lafcadio. And which run him, no doubt, into some danger.
Julius. I said that he enjoys risk. But swindling is odious to him; he doesn’t want to appropriate things, but finds it amusing to displace them surreptitiously. He’s as clever at it as a conjurer.
Lafcadio. And, besides, he’s encouraged by impunity.
Julius. Yes, but sometimes vexed by it too. If he isn’t caught, it must be because the job he set himself was too easy.
Lafcadio. He eggs himself on to take greater risks.