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ON a brilliant August morning at eight o’clock precisely the gates of the establishment of Langholm were opened for three boarders of the establishment, who had come there for various causes and sojourned for various periods. These periods were exactly suited to the grade and kind of their differences with the law-abiding community as proved by their conduct. They did not know each other, and having no feeling of brotherhood through their common misfortune, they said to one another neither good-morning nor good-bye.

The man who came out first was a thick-set fellow with a beast-like forehead and heavy wrists. One dark evening he had fallen upon an old workman whom he did not like, knocked out some of his teeth, and kicked him in the chest so that he coughed blood for several days. He had been given a month for assault and battery, which did him little harm, and he betook himself hastily to the nearest tavern.

Next came a man who had swindled an impersonal entity known as a bank of a fairly large sum of money. The three months he had spent indoors had not overly bleached his fresh brandy complexion. He had a well-fitting summer suit of dark blue with narrow white edgings; on his feet he wore new yellow shoes, and in his hand he held an elegant little satchel of the same color as the shoes, so that he most nearly resembled a traveling salesman who comes whistling softly out of a hotel. He did not, however, whistle, but mounted into a cab with a lowered hood, under which a black-clad woman with pale and anxious features awaited him. He then tossed an address to the coachman, and vanished in a cloud of dust.