"If he has been Confunded, naturally he is certain," said Snape"I assure \iyou\i, Yaxley, the Auror Office will play no further part in the protection of Harry PotterThe Order believes that we have infiltrated the Ministry
"The Order's got one thing right, then, eh?" said a squat man sitting a short distance from Yaxley; he gave a wheezy giggle that was echoed here and there along the table
Voldemort did not laughHis gaze had wandered upward to the body revolving slowly overhead, and he seemed to be lost in thought
"My Lord," Yaxley went on, "Dawlish believes an entire party of Aurors will be used to transfer the boy -"
Voldemort held up a large white hand, and Yaxley subsided at once, watching resentfully as Voldemort turned back to Snape
"Where are they going to hide the boy next?"
"At the home of one of the Order," said Snape"The place, according to the source, has been given every protection that the Order and Ministry together could provideI think that there is tiffany canada little chance of taking him once he is there, my Lord, unless, of course, the Ministry has fallen before next Saturday, which might give us the opportunity to discover and undo enough of the enchantments to break through the rest
"Well, Yaxley?" Voldemort called down the table, the firelight glinting strangely in his red eyes"\iWill\i the Ministry have fallen by next Saturday?"
Once again, all heads turnedYaxley squared his shoulders
"My Lord, I have good news on that scoreI have - with difficulty, and after great effort - succeeded in placing an Imperius Curse upon Pius Thicknesse
Many of those sitting around Yaxley looked impressed; his neighbor, Dolohov, a man with a long, twisted face, clapped him on the back
"It is a start," said Voldemort"But Thicknesse is only one manScrimgeour must be surrounded by our people before I actOne failed attempt on the Minister's life will set me back a long way
"Yes - my Lord, that is true - but you know, as Head of the Department chanel bags to buy of Magical Law Enforcement, Thicknesse has regular contact not only with the Minister himself, but also with the Heads of all the other Ministry departmentsIt will, I think, be easy now that we have such a high-ranking official under our control, to subjugate the others, and then they can all work together to bring Scrimgeour down
"As long as our friend Thicknesse is not discovered before he has converted the rest," said Voldemort"At any rate, it remains unlikely that the Ministry will be mine before next SaturdayIf we cannot touch the boy at his destination, then it must be done while he travels
"We are at an advantage there, my Lord," said Yaxley, who seemed determined to receive some portion of approval"We now have several people planted within the Department of Magical TransportIf Potter Apparates or uses the Floo Network, we shall know immediately
"He will not do either," said Snape"The Order is eschewing any form of transport that is controlled or regulated by wholesale tiffany the Ministry; they mistrust everything to do with the place
"All the better," said Voldemort"He will have to move in the openEasier to take, by far
Again, Voldemort looked up at the slowly revolving body as he went on, "I shall attend to the boy in personThere have been too many mistakes where Harry Potter is concernedSome of them have been my ownThat Potter lives is due more to my errors than to his triumphs
The company around the table watched Voldemort apprehensively, each of them, by his or her expression, afraid that they might be blamed for Harry Potter's continued existenceVoldemort, however, seemed to be speaking more to himself than to any of them, still addressing the unconscious body above him
"I have been careless, and so have been thwarted by luck and chance, those wreckers of all but the best-laid plansBut I know better nowI understand those things that I did not understand beforeI must be the one to kill Harry Potter, and I shall be
At these words, chanel classic bags seemingly in response to them, a sudden wail sounded, a terrible, drawn-out cry of misery and painMany of those at the table looked downward, startled, for the sound had seemed to issue from below their feet
"Wormtail," said Voldemort, with no change in his quiet, thoughtful tone, and without removing his eyes from the revolving body above, "have I not spoken to you about keeping our prisoner quiet?"
"Yes, m-my Lord," gasped a small man halfway down the table, who had been sitting so low in his chair that it appeared, at first glance, to be unoccupiedNow he scrambled from his seat and scurried from the room, leaving nothing behind him but a curious gleam of silver
"As I was saying," continued Voldemort, looking again at the tense faces of his followers, "I understand better nowI shall need, for instance, to borrow a wand from one of you before I go to kill Potter
The faces around him displayed nothing but shock; he might have announced that he wanted to borrow one of their louis vuitton duffle bag arm

"I'm starving! All I've had since I bled half to death is a couple of toadstools!"
"You go and fight your way through the dementors, then," said Harry, stung
"I would, but my arm's in a sling, in case you hadn't noticed!"
"That's convenient
"And what's that supposed to \a151 ?"
"Of course!" cried Hermione, clapping a hand to her forehead and startling both of them into silence"Harry, give me the locket! Come on," she said impatiently, clicking her fingers at him when he did not react," to Horcrux, Harry, you're still wearing it!"
She held out her hands, and Harry lifted the golden chain over his headThe moment it parted contact with Harry's skin he free and oddly lightHe had not even realized that he was clammy or that there was a heavy weight pressing on his stomach until both sensations lifted
"Better?" asked Hermione
"Yeah, loads better!"
"Harry," she said, crouching down in front of him and using the kind of voice he associated with visiting the very sick, "you don't think you've been possessed, do you?"
"What? No!" he said defensively, "I remember everything we've done while I've bee wearing itI wouldn't know what I'd done if I'd been possessed, would borse louis vuitton I? Ginny told me there were times when she couldn't remember anything
"Hmm," said Hermione, looking down at the heavy locket"Well, maybe we ought not to wear itWe can just keep it in the tent
"We are not leaving that Horcrux lying around," Harry stated firmly"If we lose it, if it gets stolen\a151"
"Oh, all right, all right," said Hermione, and she placed it around her own neck and tucked it out of sight down the front of her shirt"But we'll take turns wearing it, so nobody keeps it on too long
"Great," said Ron irritably, "and now we've sorted that out, can we please get some food?"
"Fine, but we'll go somewhere else to find it," said Hermione with half a glance at Harry"There's no point staying where we know dementors are swooping around
In the end they settled down for the night in a far flung field belonging to a lonely farm, from which they had managed to obtain eggs and bread
"It's not stealing, is it?" asked Hermione in a troubled voice, as they devoured scrambled eggs on toast"Not if I left some money under the chicken coo?"
Ron rolled his eyes and said, with his cheeks bulging, "Er-my-nee, 'oo worry 'oo much'Elax!"
And, indeed, it was much easier louis vuitton denim to relax when they were comfortably well fedThe argument about the dementors was forgotten in laughter that night, and Harry felt cheerful, even hopeful, as he took the first of the three night watches
This was their first encounter with the fact that a full stomach meant good spirits, an empty one, bickering and gloomHarry was least surprised by this, because be had suffered periods of near starvation at the Dursleys'Hermione bore up reasonably well on those nights when they managed to scavenge nothing but berries or stale biscuits, her temper perhaps a little shorter than usual and her silences dourRon, however, had always been used to three delicious meals a day, courtesy of his mother or of the Hogwarts house-elves, and hunger made him both unreasonable and irascibleWhenever lack of food coincided with Ron's turn to wear the Horcrux, he became downright unpleasant
"So where next?" was his constant refrainHe did not seem to have any ideas himself, but expected Harry and Hermione to come up with plans while he sat and brooded over the low food suppliesAccordingly Harry and Hermione spent fruitless hours trying to decide where they might find the other Horcruxes, vintage omega watches and how to destroy the one they already got, their conversations becoming increasingly repetitive as they got no new information
As Dumbledore had told Harry that be believed Voldemort had hidden the Horcruxes in places important to him, they kept reciting, in a sort of dreary litany, those locations they knew that Voldemort had lived or visitedThe orphanage where he had been born and raised: Hogwarts, where he had been educated; Borgin and Burks, where he had worked after completing school; then Albania, where he had spent his years of exile: These formed the basis of their speculations
"Yeah, let's go to AlbaniaShouldn't take more than an afternoon to search an entire country," said Ron sarcastically
"There can't be anything thereHe'd already made five of his Horcruxes before he went into exile, and Dumbledore was certain the snake is the sixth," said Hermione"We know the snake's not in Albania, it's usually with Vol\a151"
"Didn't I ask you to stop say that?"
"Fine! The snake is usually with You-Know-Who\a151happy?"
"Not particularly
"I can't see him hiding anything at Borgin and Burkes said Harry, who had made this point many times before, but said it see by chloe bag again simply to break the nasty silence"Borgin and Burke were experts at Dark objects, they would've recognized a Horcrux straightaway
Ron yawned pointedlyRepressing a strong urge to throw something at him, Harry plowed on, "I still reckon he might have hidden something at Hogwarts
"But Dumbledore would have found it, Harry!"
Harry repeated the argument he kept bringing out in favor of this theory
"Dumbledore said in front of me that he never assumed he knew all of Hogwart's secretsI'm telling you, if there was one place Vol\a151"
"Oi!"
"YOU-KNOW-WHO, then!" Harry shouted, goaded past endurance"If there was one place that was really important to You-Know-Who, it was Hogwarts!"
"Oh, come on," scoffed Ron"His school?"
"Yeah, his school! It was his first real home, the place that meant he was special: it meant everything to him, and even after he left\a151"
"This is You-Know-Who we're talking about, right? Not you?" inquired RonHe was tugging at the chain of the Horcrux around his neck; Harry was visited by a desire to seize it and throttle him
"You told us that You-Know-Who asked Dumbledore to give him a job after he left," said Hermione
"That's right," said pink vuitton bag Harry

Putin presented a stark contrast to YeltsinYeltsin was large and stocky; Putin was compact and extremely fit from years of martial arts practiceYeltsin was voluble; the former KGB agent was measured and preciseI came away from the meeting believing Yeltsin had picked a successor who had the skills and capacity for hard work necessary to manage Russias turbulent political and economic life better than Yeltsin now could, given his health problems; Putin also had the toughness to defend Russias interests and protect Yeltsins legacy

Before we left New Zealand, Chelsea and I and my staff took some time to enjoy the beautiful countryPrime Minister Jenny Shipley and her husband, Burton, hosted us in Queenstown, where I played golf with Burton, Chelsea explored caves with the Shipley kids, and several of my staff went bungee jumping off a high bridgeGene Sperling tried to goad me into trying it, but I told him Id had about all the free falls I could stand

Our last stop was the International Antarctic Center in Christchurch, Americas launching station for our operations in AntarcticaThe cen-ter contained a large training module in which the frigid conditions of Antarctica were replicatedI went there to highlight the problem of global warmingAntarctica is a great cooling tower for our planet, with ice more than two miles thickA huge chunk of Antarctic ice, about the size of Rhode Island, had recently broken free as a result of thawingI released previously vintage chanel jewelry classified satellite photos of the continent to aid in studying the changes that were occurringThe biggest thrill of the event for Chelsea and me was the presence of Sir Edmund Hillary, who had explored the South Pole in the 1950s, was the first man to reach the top of Mount Everest, and, most important, was the man Chelseas mother had been named for

Soon after I returned to America, I went to New York to open the last UN General Assembly of the twentieth century, urging the delegates to adopt three resolutions: to do more to fight poverty and put a human face on the global economy; to increase our efforts to prevent or quickly stop the killing of innocents in ethnic, religious, racial, or tribal conflicts; and to intensify our efforts to prevent the use of nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons by irresponsible nations or terrorist groups

At the end of the month I got back to domestic affairs, vetoing the latest Republican tax cut because it was too big, too bloated, and put too great a burden on Americas economyUnder the budget rules, the bill would have forced large cuts in education, health care, and environmental protectionIt would have prevented us from extending the life of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds, and from adding a much-needed prescription drug benefit to Medicare

We were going to have a surplus this year of about $100 billion, but the proposed GOP tax cut would cost nearly $1 trillion over a decadeRepublicans justification for it prada clutch was based on projected surplusesOn this issue I was far more conservative than they wereIf the projections were wrong, the deficits would return, and, with them, higher interest rates and slower growthOver the previous five years, Congressional Budget Office estimates had been off by an average of 13 percent a year, though our administrations had been closer to the markIt was an irresponsible riskI asked the Republicans to work with the White House and the Democrats in the same spirit that had produced the bipartisan welfare reform bill in 1996 and the Balanced Budget Act in 1997

On September 24, Hillary and I hosted an event in the Old Executive Office Building to celebrate the success of bipartisan efforts to increase the adoption of children out of the foster-care systemThey had increased almost 30 percent in the two years since our legislation had passedI paid tribute to Hillary, who had been working on the issue for more than twenty years, and to perhaps the most ardent supporter of the reforms in the House, Tom DeLay, himself an adoptive parent

I would have liked a few more moments like that, but with this one exception, DeLay didnt believe in consorting with the enemy

Partisanship returned in early October, when the Senate rejected, on a party-line vote, my nomination of Judge Ronnie White to a federal district judgeshipWhite was the first African-American man to serve on the Missouri Supreme Court and was a highly regarded judgeHe was defeated omega usa after Missouris conservative senator John Ashcroft, who was in a tough fight for reelection against Governor Mel Carnahan, grossly distorted Whites record on the death penaltyWhite had voted to uphold 70 percent of the death penalty cases that had come before himOn more than half of those he had voted to reverse, he was part of a unanimous state supreme court rulingAshcroft got his Republican colleagues to go along with the smear because he thought it would help him and hurt Whites supporter Governor Carnahan with prodeath penalty voters in Missouri

Ashcroft wasnt alone in completely politicizing the confirmation processBy this time, Senator Jesse Helms had refused for years to allow the Senate to vote on a black judge for the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, even though there had never been an African-American on the courtAnd the Republicans wondered why African-Americans wouldnt vote for them

Our partisan differences extended even to the nuclear test ban treaty, which had been supported by every Republican and Democrat President since EisenhowerThe Joint Chiefs were for it, and our nuclear experts said tests werent necessary to check the reliability of our weaponsBut we didnt have the votes of two-thirds of the senators necessary to ratify the treaty, and Trent Lott tried to get me to promise not to raise it for the rest of my termI couldnt figure out whether the Senate Republicans had really moved that far to the right of their own partys traditional chanel logo earrings position or just didnt want to give me another victoryRegardless, their refusal to ratify the test ban treaty weakened Americas ability to argue that other nations shouldnt develop or test nuclear weapons

I continued doing political events for Al Gore and the Democrats, including two with gay activists who were strongly supportive of both Al and me because of the substantial number of openly gay and lesbian citizens serving in the administration, and because of our strong support of the Employment Nondiscrimination Act and the hate crimes bill, which made crimes committed against people because of their race, disability, or sexual orientation a federal offenseI also went to New York whenever I could to support HillaryHer likely opponent was New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was a combative, controversial figure but was much less conservative than the national RepublicansI had had a cordial relationship with him, largely because of our shared support for the COPS program and gun safety measuresBush seemed well on his way to winning the Republican nomination, as several of his challengers dropped out, leaving only Senator John McCain with any chance of stopping himI had been impressed with Bushs campaign since I first saw him articulate his compassionate conservative theme in a farm setting in IowaI thought it was a brilliant formulation, virtually the only argument he could make to swing voters against an administration with approval ratings in the 65 percent omega de ville men's watches range

' Poor
Ordinary! If he was modest, he was also untruthful, and you are certain
that it was not thus the hero met his death
Even had Fielding never written his masterpiece, Jonathan Wild would
still have been surnamed `The Great' For scarce a chap- book appeared
in the year of Jonathan's death that did not expose the only right and true
view of his character `His business,' says one hack of prison literature,
`at all times was to put a false gloss upon things, and to make fools of
mankind' Another precisely formulates the theory of greatness insisted
upon by Fielding with so lavish an irony and so masterly a wit While it
is certain that The History of the Late MrJonathan Wild is as noble a
piece of irony as literature can show, while for the qualities of wit and
candour it is equal to its motive, it is likewise true that therein you meet
the indubitable Jonathan Wild It is an entertainment to compare the
chap-books of the time with the reasoned, finished work of art: not in any
spirit of pedantry--since accuracy in these matters is of small account, but
with intent to show how doubly fortunate Fielding was in his genius and in
his material Of course the writer rejoiced in the aid of imagination and
eloquence; of course he embellished his picture with such inspirations as
Miss Laetitia and the Count; of course he preserves from the first page to
the last the highest level of unrivalled irony But the sketch was there
before him, and a lawyer's clerk had treated Jonathan in a vein of heroism
within a few weeks of his death And since a plain balenciaga designer statement is never so
true as fiction, Fielding's romance is still more credible, still convinces
with an easier effort, than the serious and pedestrian records of
contemporaries Nor can you return to its pages without realising that, so
far from being `the evolution of a purely intellectual conception,' Jonathan
Wild is a magnificently idealised and ironical portrait of a great man

III A PARALLEL
(MOLL CUTPURSE AND JONATHAN WILD)
THEY plied the same trade, each with incomparable success By her,
as by him, the art of the fence was carried to its ultimate perfection In

A BOOK OF SCOUNDRELS
their hands the high policy of theft wanted nor dignity nor assurance
Neither harboured a single scheme which was not straightway translated
into action, and they were masters at once of Newgate and the Highway
As none might rob without the encouragement of his emperor, so none
was hanged at Tyburn while intrigue or bribery might avail to drag a half-
doomed neck from the halter; and not even Moll herself was more bitterly
tyrannical in the control of a reckless gang than the thin-jawed, hatchet-
faced Jonathan Wild
They were statesmen rather than warriors--happy if they might direct
the enterprises of others, and determined to punish the lightest
disobedience by death The mind of each was readier than his right arm,
and neither would risk an easy advantage by a misunderstood or women's rolex watch unwonted
sleight of hand But when you leave the exercise of their craft to
contemplate their character with a larger eye, it is the woman who at every
point has the advantage Not only was she the peerless inventor of a new
cunning; she was at home (and abroad) the better fellow The
suppression of sex was in itself an unparalleled triumph, and the most
envious detractor could not but marvel at the domination of her
womanhood Moreover, she shone in a gayer, more splendid epoch
The worthy contemporary of Shakespeare, she had small difficulty in
performing feats of prowess and resource which daunted the intrepid
ruffians of the eighteenth century Her period, in brief, gave her an
eternal superiority; and it were as hopeless for Otway to surpass the master
whom he disgraced, as for Wild to o'ershadow the brilliant example of
Moll Cutpurse
Tyrants both, they exercised their sovereignty in accordance with their
varying temperament Hers was a fine, fat, Falstaffian humour, which,
while it inspired Middleton, might have suggested to Shakespeare an equal
companion of the drunken knight His was but a narrow, cynic wit, not
edged like the knife, which wellnigh cut his throat, but blunt and
scratching like a worn-toothed saw
She laughed with a laugh that echoed from Ludgate to Charing Cross,
and her voice drowned all the City He grinned rarely and with malice;
he piped in a voice shrill and acid as the tricks of his mischievous

classic chanel handbag A BOOK OF SCOUNDRELS
imagination She knew no cruelty beyond the necessities of her life, and
none regretted more than she the inevitable death of a traitor He lusted
after destruction with a fiendish temper, which was a grim anticipation of
De Sade; he would even smile as he saw the noose tighten round the necks
of the poor innocents he had beguiled to Tyburn It was his boast that he
had contrived robberies for the mere glory of dragging his silly victims to
the gallows But Moll, though she stood half-way between the robber
and his prey, would have sacrificed a hundred well-earned commissions
rather than see her friends and comrades strangled Her temperament
compelled her to the loyal support of her own order, and she would have
shrunk in horror from her rival, who, for all his assumed friendship with
the thief, was a staunch and subtle ally of justice
Before all things she had the genius of success Her public offences
were trivial and condoned She died in her bed, full of years and of
honours, beloved by the light-fingered gentry, reverenced by all the judges
on the bench He, for all the sacrifices he made to a squint-eyed law,
died execrated alike by populace and police Already Blueskin had done
his worst with a pen-knife; already Jack Sheppard and his comrades had
warned Drury Lane against the infamous thief-catcher And so anxious,
on the other hand, was the law to be quit of their too zealous servant, that
an Act of Parliament was passed with the sole object of placing Jonathan's
head within the noose His method, meagre though masterly, lulled him
too chanel quilted bags soon to an impotent security She, with her larger view of life, her
plumper sense of style, was content with nothing less than an ultimate
sovereignty, and manifestly did she prove her superiority
Though born for the wimple, she was more of a man than the breeched
and stockinged Jonathan, whose only deed of valiance was to hang, terrier-
like, by his teeth to an evasive enemy While he cheated at cards and
cogged the dice, she trained dogs and never missed a bear-baiting He
shrank, like the coward that he was, from the exercise of manly sports; she
cared not what were the weapons--quarterstaff or broadsword--so long as
she vanquished her opponent She scoured the town in search of insult;
he did but exert his cunning when a quarrel was put upon him Who,
then, shall deny her manhood? Who shall whisper that his style was the

A BOOK OF SCOUNDRELS
braver or the better suited to his sex?
As became a hero, she kept the best of loose company: her parlour was
ever packed with the friends of loyalty and adventure Are not Hind and
Mull Sack worth a thousand Blueskins? Moreover, plunder and wealth
were not the only objects of her pursuit: she was not merely a fence but a
patriot, and she would have accounted a thousand pounds well lost, if she
did but compass the discomfiture of a Parliament-man Indeed, if
Jonathan, the thief-catcher, limped painfully after his magnificent example,
Jonathan the man and the sportsman confessed a pitiful inferiority to the
valiant tiffany diamond

Cartouche, on the other hand,
chose his cabaret for the wit of its patronne, and was always happy in the
elegance and accomplishment of his companions One point of likeness
remains The two heroes resembled each other not only in their
profession, but in their person Though their trade demanded physical
strength, each was small and slender of build `A little, slight-limbed
lad,' says the historian of Sheppard `A thin, spare frame,' sings the poet
of Cartouche Here, then, neither had the advantage, and if in the shades
Cartouche despises the clumsiness and vulgarity of his rival, Sheppard
may still remember the glory of Newgate, and twit the Frenchman with the
barking of the boxmaker's dog But genius is the talent of the dead, and
the wise, who are not partisans, will not deny to the one or to the other the
possession of the rarer gift
DRELS


TO Haggart, who babbled on the Castle Rock of Willie Wallace and
was only nineteen when he danced without the music; to Simms, alias
Gentleman Harry, who showed at Tyburn how a hero could die; to George
Barrington, the incomparably witty and adroit--to these a full meed of
honour has been paid Even the coarse and dastardly Freney has
achieved, with Thackeray's aid (and Lever's) something of a reputation
But James Hardy Vaux, despite his eloquent bid for fame, has not found
his rhapsodist Yet a more consistent ruffian never pleaded for mercy
From his early cartier pasha watch youth until in 1819 he sent forth his Memoirs to the world,
he lived industriously upon the cross There was no racket but he worked
it with energy and address Though he practised the more glorious crafts
of pickpocket and shoplifter, he did not despise the begging-letter, and he
suffered his last punishment for receiving what another's courage had
conveyed His enterprise was not seldom rewarded with success, and for
a decade of years he continued to preserve an appearance of gentility; but
it is plain, even from his own narrative, that he was scarce an artist, and
we shall best understand him if we recognise that he was a Philistine
among thieves He lived in an age of pocket- picking, and skill in this
branch is the true test of his time A contemporary of Barrington, he had
before him the most brilliant of examples, which might properly have
enforced the worth of a simple method But, though he constantly brags
of his success at Drury Lane, we take not his generalities for gospel, and
the one exploit whose credibility is enforced with circumstance was pitiful
both in conception and performance A meeting of freeholders at the
`Mermaid Tavern,' Hackney, was the occasion, and after drawing blank
upon blank, Vaux succeeded at last in extracting a silver snuff-box Now,
his clumsiness had suggested the use of the scissors, and the victim not
only discovered the scission in his coat, but caught the thief with the
implements of his art upon him By a miracle of impudence chanel white watches Vaux
escaped conviction, but he deserved the gallows for his want of principle,
and not even sympathy could have let drop a tear, had justice seized her

A BOOK OF SCOUNDRELS
due On the straight or on the cross the canons of art deserve respect; and
a thief is great, not because he is a thief, but because, in filling his own
pocket, he preserves from violence the legitimate traditions of his craft
But it was in conflict with the jewellers that Vaux best proved his mettle
It was his wont to clothe himself `in the most elegant attire,' and on the
pretence of purchase to rifle the shops of Piccadilly For this offence--
`pinching' the Cant Dictionary calls it--he did his longest stretch of time,
and here his admirable qualities of cunning and coolness found their most
generous scope A love of fine clothes he shared with all the best of his
kind, and he visited Mr Bilger--the jeweller who arrested him--
magnificently arrayed He wore a black coat and waistcoat, blue
pantaloons, Hessian boots, and a hat `in the extreme of the newest
fashion' He was also resplendent with gold watch and eye-glass His
hair was powdered, and a fawney sparkled on his dexter fam The booty
was enormous, and a week later he revisited the shop on another errand
This second visit was the one flash of genius in a somewhat drab career:
the jeweller was so completely dumfounded, that Vaux might have got
clean away But seamaster de ville though he kept discreetly out of sight for a while, at last
he drifted back to his ancient boozing-ken, and was there betrayed to a
notorious thief-catcher The inevitable sentence of death followed It
was commuted after the fashion of the time, and Vaux, having sojourned a
while at the Hulks, sought for a second time the genial airs of Botany Bay
His vanity and his laziness were alike invincible He believed
himself a miracle of learning as well as a perfect thief, and physical toil
was the sole `lay' for which he professed no capacity For a while he
corrected the press for a printer, and he roundly asserts that his knowledge
of literature and of foreign tongues rendered him invaluable It was
vanity again that induced him to assert his innocence when he was lagged
for so vulgar a crime as stealing a wipe from a tradesman in Chancery
Lane At the moment of arrest he was on his way to purchase base coin
from a Whitechapel bit-faker: but, despite his nefarious errand, he is
righteously wrathful at what he asserts was an unjust conviction, and
henceforth he assumed the crown of martyrdom His first and last
ambition during the intervals of freedom was gentility, and so long as he



A BOOK OF SCOUNDRELS
was not at work he lived the life of a respectable grocer Although the
casual Cyprian flits across his page, he pursued the one flame of his life
for the good motive, and he affects to chanel clutch be a very model of domesticity
The sentiment of piety also was strong upon him, and if he did not, like
the illustrious Peace, pray for his jailer, he rivalled the Prison Ordinary in
comforting the condemned Had it only been his fate to die on the
gallows, how unctuous had been his croak!
The text of his `Memoirs' having been edited, it is scarce possible to
define his literary talent The book, as it stands, is an excellent piece of
narrative, but it loses somewhat by the pretence of style The man's
invulnerable conceit prevented an absolute frankness, and there is little
enough hilarity to correct the acid sentiment and the intolerable vows of
repentance Again, though he knows his subject, and can patter flash
with the best, his incorrigible respectability leads him to ape the manner of
a Grub Street hack, and to banish to a vocabulary those pearls of slang
which might have added vigour and lustre to his somewhat tiresome page
However, the thief cannot escape his inevitable defects The vanity, the
weakness, the sentimentality of those who are born beasts of prey, yet
have the faculty of depredation only half-developed, are the foes of truth,
and it is well to remember that the autobiography of a rascal is tainted at
its source A congenial pickpocket, equipped with the self-knowledge
and the candour which would enable him to recognise himself an outlaw
and justice his enemy rather than an instrument of malice, would prove a
Napoleon rather than a chanel jumbo bag Va