“Yes; you see, a man wants a real fresh start when his eyes become opened, so he has a new deal all round, so to speak. Then he gets a fair chance.” There was a short pause here, as I seemed to be on delicate ground in touching on my companion’s antecedents, and he did not volunteer any information. I broke the silence by offering him a cheroot.
“No, thanks,” said he; “I have given up tobacco. It was the hardest wrench of all, was that. It does me good to smell the whiff of your weed. Tell me,” he added suddenly, looking hard at me with his shrewd gray eyes, “why did you take stock of me so carefully before you spoke?”
“It is a habit of mine,” said I. “I am a medical man, and observation is everything in my profession. I had no idea you were looking.”
“I can see without looking,” he answered. “I thought you were a detective, at first; but I couldn’t recall your face at the time I knew the force.”
“Were you a detective, then?” said I.
“No,” he answered, with a laugh; “I was the other thing—the detected, you know. Old scores are wiped out now, and the law cannot touch me; so I don’t mind confessing to a gentleman like yourself what a scoundrel I have been in my time.”
“We are none of us perfect,” said I.
“No; but I was a real out-and-outer. A ‘fake,’ you know, to start with, and afterwards a ‘cracksman.’ It is easy to talk of these things now, for I’ve changed my spirit. It’s as if I was talking of some other man, you see.”
“Exactly so,” said I. Being a medical man, I had none of that shrinking from crime and criminals which many men possess. I could make all allowances for congenital influence and the force of circumstances. No company, therefore, could have been more acceptable to me than that of the old malefactor; and as I sat puffing at my cigar, I was delighted to observe that my air of interest was gradually loosening his tongue.
“Yes; I’m converted now,” he continued, “and of course I am a happier man for that. And yet,” he added wistfully, “there are times when I long for the old trade again, and fancy myself strolling out on a cloudy night with my jimmy in my pocket. I left a name behind me in my profession, sir. I was one of the old school, you know. It was very seldom that we bungled a job. We used to begin at the foot of the ladder, the rope ladder, if I may say so, in my younger days, and then work our way up, step by step, so that we were what you might call good men all through.”