What if it should be stolen?
The mere thought made him cold with horror.

Surely the world would know his secret then.

Perhaps the world already suspected it.
For, while he fascinated many, there were not a few who distrusted him.
He was very nearly blackballed at a West End club of which his birth and social position fully entitled him to become a member, and it was said that on one occasion, when he was brought by a friend into the smoking-room of the Churchill, the Duke of Berwick and another gentleman got up in a marked manner and went out.

Curious stories became current about him after he had passed his twenty-fifth year.

It was rumoured that he had been seen brawling with foreign sailors in a low den in the distant parts of Whitechapel, and that he consorted with thieves and coiners and knew the mysteries of their trade.