Explore "The Coat of Arms" by Edgar Wallace on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Charles had neither shocked nor surprised him. He was an habitual criminal, which explained everything. There is nothing romantic about any kind of criminal; for the man who has been in prison time after time, generally for the same or a variation of the same offence, may not be treated as an ordinary member of society. He is part of the world's waste, the dirt that is swept behind walls at irregular intervals. He knows neither gratitude nor loyalty.
Charles was true to type. Lorney wouldn't know this, and Lorney might be shocked, for he was, he confessed, a sentimentalist, and sometimes glowed with the thought that he had taken this gaolbird out of the gutter and given him the comfort which had been denied to him in his unregenerate days.