plan of evasion—­I may call it—­in all its primitive simplicity.  There were the rupees—­absolutely ready in my pocket and very much at his service.  Oh! a loan; a loan of course—­and if an introduction to a man (in Rangoon) who could put some work in his way . . .  Why! with the greatest pleasure.  I had pen, ink, and paper in my room on the first floor And even while I was speaking I was impatient to begin the letter—­day, month, year, 2.30 A.M. . . . for the sake of our old friendship I ask you to put some work in the way of Mr. James So-and-so, in whom, &c., &c. . . .  I was even ready to write in that strain about him.  If he had not enlisted my sympathies he had done better for himself—­he had gone to the very fount and origin of that sentiment he had reached the secret sensibility of my egoism.  I am concealing nothing from you, because were I to do so my action would appear more unintelligible than any man’s action has the right to be, and—­in the second place—­to-morrow you will forget my sincerity along with the other lessons of the past.  In this transaction, to speak grossly and precisely, I was the irreproachable man; but the subtle intentions of my immorality were defeated by the moral simplicity of the criminal.  No doubt he was selfish too, but his selfishness had a higher origin, a more lofty aim.  I discovered that, say what I would, he was eager to go through the ceremony of execution, and I didn’t say much, for I felt that in argument his youth would tell against me heavily:  he believed where I had already ceased to doubt.  There was something fine in the wildness of his unexpressed, hardly formulated hope.  “Clear out!  Couldn’t think of it,” he said, with a shake of the head.  “I make you an offer for which I neither demand nor expect any sort of gratitude,” I said; “you shall repay the money when convenient, and . . .”  “Awfully good of you,” he muttered without looking up.  I watched him narrowly:  the future must have appeared horribly uncertain to him; but he did not falter, as though indeed there had been nothing wrong with his heart.  I felt angry—­not for the first time that night.  “The whole wretched business,” I said, “is bitter enough, I should think, for a man of your kind . . .”  “It is, it is,” he whispered twice, with his eyes fixed on the floor.  It was heartrending.  He towered above the light, and I could see the down on his cheek, the colour mantling warm under the smooth skin of his face.  Believe me or not, I say it was outrageously heartrending.  It provoked me to brutality.  “Yes,” I said; “and allow me to confess that I am totally unable to imagine what advantage you can expect from this licking of the dregs.”  “Advantage!” he murmured out of his stillness.  “I am dashed if I do,” I said, enraged.  “I’ve been trying to tell you all there is in it,” he went on slowly, as if meditating something unanswerable.  “But after all, it is my trouble.”  I opened my mouth to retort, and discovered suddenly that I’d lost