criminal has to be wrong—but even at that sort of work Bud tried to keep as clean-handed as he could. I can remember when a porch-climber friend of his steered him into a chance to clean out a four-family flat-house in Cleveland. He merely said, 'Nix on the wage-earners!' And he meant it. For he always drew the line at robbing the poor. But he felt that he had a sort of right to shake down the rich, now and then, and I've seen him make his rounds as though he were a tax-collector after arrears. I think he even took a sort of joy in setting an overdressed dowager back a couple of marquise rings and a sunburst or two!"
Wendy Washburn sat studying me quite soberly. But for some reason or other there was humor in his eyes.
"I like you for being loyal to Bud, no matter what he was," explained the man across the table from me. "But what I've been trying to get at is that all these activities of his were pretty small affairs. They could only lead to failure, in the end. In fact, they did lead to failure. They weren't big enough to justify themselves. Bud, I mean, may have been the most upright burglar who ever jimmied a back window, but to the local police he would always be a burglar!"
