"
"Then he's no use to me. I'm a practical man."
"Mr. Mac, the most practical thing that you ever did in your life
would be to shut yourself up for three months and read twelve
hours a day at the annals of crime. Everything comes in
circles--even Professor Moriarty. Jonathan Wild was the hidden
force of the London criminals, to whom he sold his brains and his
organization on a fifteen per cent. commission. The old wheel
turns, and the same spoke comes up. It's all been done before,
and will be again. I'll tell you one or two things about
Moriarty which may interest you."
"You'll interest me, right enough."
"I happen to know who is the first link in his chain--a chain
with this Napoleon-gone-wrong at one end, and a hundred broken
fighting men, pickpockets, blackmailers, and card sharpers at the
other, with every sort of crime in between. His chief of staff
is Colonel Sebastian Moran, as aloof and guarded and inaccessible
to the law as himself. What do you think he pays him?"
"I'd like to hear."
"Six thousand a year. That's paying for brains, you see--the
American business principle.
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