But the simple facts were that he had become an orphan at fifteen and a broker's clerk at nineteen after a course in a business college; and that experiences with wash-sales and such devious and dubious practices of brokers, his high spirits, his instinct for pleasure, his desire for big winnings--these had swept him into a wild crowd before he had been old enough to take himself seriously, and had started him upon a brilliant career of adventures and unlawful money-making in whose excitement there had been no let-up until his arrest.

He had never thought about such technical and highly academic subjects as right and wrong up to the day when Casey and Gavegan had slipped the handcuffs upon him.

To laugh, to dance, to plan and direct clever coups, to spend the proceeds gayly and lavishly--to challenge the police with another daring coup: that had been life to him, a game that was all excitement.
And now, after two years in which there had been plenty of time for thinking, his conscience still did not trouble him on the score of his offenses.

He believed, and was largely right in this belief, that the suckers he had trimmed had all been out to secure unlawful gain and to take cunning advantage of his supposedly foolish self and of other dupes.

He had been too clever for them, that was all; in desire and intent they had been as great cheats as himself.