Brodie. Luck! Don’t talk of luck to a man like me! Why not say I’ve the devil’s own judgment? Men of my stamp don’t risk—they plan, Badger; they plan, and leave chance to such cattle as you (and Jingling Geordie. They make opportunities before they take them).
Moore. You’re artful, ain’t you?
Brodie. Should I be here else? When I leave my house I leave an alibi behind me. I’m ill—ill with a jumping headache, and the fiend’s own temper. I’m sick in bed this minute, and they’re all going about with the fear of death on them lest they should disturb the poor sick Deacon. (My bedroom door is barred and bolted like the bank—you remember!—and all the while the window’s open, and the Deacon’s over the hills and far away. What do you think of me?)
Moore. I’ve seen your sort before, I have.
Brodie. Not you. As for Leslie’s——
Moore. That was a nick above you.
Brodie. Ay was it. He wellnigh took me red-handed; and that was better luck than I deserved. If I’d not been drunk and in my tantrums, you’d never have got my hand within a thousand years of such a job.
Moore. Why not? You’re the King of the Cracksmen, ain’t you?
Brodie. Why not! He asks me why not! Gods what a brain it is! Hark ye, Badger, it’s all very well to be King of the Cracksmen, as you call it; but however respectable he may have the misfortune to be, one’s friend is one’s friend, and as such must be severely let alone. What! shall there be no more honour among thieves than there is honesty among politicians? Why, man, if under heaven there were but one poor lock unpicked, and that the lock of one whose claret you’ve drunk, and who has babbled of woman across your own mahogany—that lock, sir, were entirely sacred. Sacred as the Kirk of Scotland; sacred as King George upon his throne; sacred as the memory of Bruce and Bannockburn.