[Dark Saint Alaick]

Picture to yourselves that a famous poet of talent, whose
tales and poems adorn the pages of our best magazines,
is suddenly offered the chance of writing verses at a penny
a line, signed into the bargain, as an advertisement for
'Cigarettes Jasmine'--or that a slander was spread about one
of you distinguished barristers, accusing you of making a business
of concocting evidence for divorce cases, or of writing
petitions from the cabmen to the governor in public-houses! Certainly
your relatives, friends and acquaintances wouldn't believe it. But the
rumour has already done its poisonous work, and you have to live
through minutes of torture. Now picture to yourselves that such a
disgraceful and vexatious slander, started by God knows whom, begins
to threaten not only your good name and your quiet digestion, but your
freedom, your health, and even your life!

"This is the position of us thieves, now being slandered by the
newspapers. I must explain. There is in existence a class of
scum--_passez-moi le mot_--whom we call their 'Mothers' Darlings.'
With these we are unfortunately confused. They have neither shame nor
conscience, a dissipated riff-raff, mothers' useless darlings, idle,
clumsy drones, shop assistants who commit unskilful thefts. He thinks
nothing of living on his mistress, a prostitute, like the male
mackerel, who always swims after the female and lives on her
excrements. He is capable of robbing a child with violence in a dark
alley, in order to get a penny; he will kill a man in his sleep and
torture an old woman. These men are the pests of our profession. For
them the beauties and the traditions of the art have no existence.
They watch us real, talented thieves like a pack of jackals after a
lion. Suppose I've managed to bring off an important job--we won't
mention the fact that I have to leave two-thirds of what I get to the
receivers who sell the goods and discount the notes, or the customary
subsidies to our incorruptible police--I still have to share out
something to each one of these parasites, who have got wind of my job,
by accident, hearsay, or a casual glance.