My father was a drunken scoundrel, who suffered his children to grow up about him as he would have suffered a litter of puppies to sprawl upon his hearth, only because there was less trouble in letting them lie there than in kicking them out.

My mother was a good woman in the beginning, I know; but she must have been something more than a mortal woman if she had not lost some of her goodness in twelve years of such a life as she led with my father.

I believe she was fond of me, poor soul; but she died six months before I ran away from a lodging in the Rules, which it is the bitterest irony to speak of as my home.

Since then I have been Robert Macaire, and have about as many friends as such a man usually has." "You can scarcely wonder if you have few friends," said Miss Paget, "since there is no one in the world whom you love." She watched him through the darkness after saying this, watched him closely, though it was too dark for her to see the expression of his face, and any emotion to which her words might have given rise could be betrayed only by some gesture or change of attitude.

She watched him in vain, for he did not stir.