He never stooped to pilfer, until exposure and decay had weakened his hand.  In his first week at Dublin he carried off L1000, and it was only his fateful interview with Sir John Fielding that gave him poverty for a bedfellow.  Even at the end, when he slunk from town to town, a notorious outlaw, he had inspirations of his ancient magnificence, and—­at Chester—­he eluded the vigilance of his enemies and captured L600, wherewith he purchased some months of respectability.  Now, respectability was ever dear to him, and it was at once his pleasure and profit to live in the highest society.  Were it not blasphemy to sully Barrington with slang you would call him a member of the swell-mob, but, having cultivated a grave and sober style for himself, he recoiled in horror from the flash lingo, and his susceptibility demands respect.

He kept a commonplace book!  Was ever such thrift in a thief?  Whatever images or thoughts flashed through his brain, he seized them on paper, even ’amidst the jollity of a tavern, or in the warmth of an interesting conversation.’  Was it then strange that he triumphed as a man of fashionable and cultured leisure?  He would visit Ranelagh with the most distinguished, and turn a while from epigram and jest to empty the pocket of a rich acquaintance.  And ever with so tactful a certainty, with so fine a restraint of the emotions, that suspicion was preposterous.  To catalogue his exploits is superfluous, yet let it be recorded that once he went to Court, habited as a clergyman, and came home the richer for a diamond order, Lord C—­’s proudest decoration.  Even the assault upon Prince Orloff was nobly planned.  Barrington had precise intelligence of the marvellous snuff-box—­the Empress’s own gift to her lover; he knew also how he might meet the Prince at Drury Lane; he had even discovered that the Prince for safety hid the jewel in his vest.  But the Prince felt the Prig’s hand upon the treasure, and gave an instant alarm.  Over-confidence, maybe, or a too liberal dinner was the cause of failure, and Barrington, surrounded in a moment, was speedily in the lock-up.  It was the first rebuff that the hero had received, and straightway his tact and ingenuity left him.  The evidence was faulty, the prosecution declined, and naught was necessary for escape save presence of mind.  Even friends were staunch, and had Barrington told his customary lie, his character had gone unsullied.  Yet having posed for his friends as a student of the law, at Bow Street he must needs declare himself a doctor, and the needless discrepancy ruined him.  Though he escaped the gallows, there was an end to the diversions of intellect and fashion; as he discovered when he visited the House of Lords to hear an appeal, and Black Rod ejected him at the persuasion of Mr. G—.  As yet unused to insult, he threatened violence against the aggressor, and finding no bail he was sent on his first imprisonment to the Bridewell in Tothill Fields.  Rapid, indeed,