Читать книгу Charles Peace, or The Adventures of a Notorious Burglar онлайн

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To a certain extent the girl, Bessie Dalton, was proud of him. He was far ahead in many ways of the working population of Bradford, who, one and all, voted him a right good fellow.

For a short time he led a tolerably quiet life.

But it was not in his nature to earn a respectable living for long without having recourse to his evil courses.

He became straitened in circumstances, and once more he essayed to replenish his exchequer by his midnight excursions.

Since the disastrous affair at Oakfield House he had made up his mind to carry on business on his own account.

He would have no accomplices. None should know of his depredations save the girl Bessie, in whom he had implicit confidence.

And it is but justice to her to note that whatever may have been her faults she never betrayed Charles Peace.

He was for the first time made up as a one-arm man. He had for a long time contemplated disguising himself in this way, and the better to carry out his purpose had moulded a piece of gutta-percha, to which a hook was attached, his hand, when drawn up, fitting into the socket of the gutta-percha.