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CONFESSIONS OF A THUG.
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no longer a child, and your history has opened to me new feelings which are at present too vague for me to describe; but I long to win fame as you have done, and long to become a member of the profession in which you describe true faith and brotherhood alone to exist. As yet I have seen nothing of the false world, and assuredly what you have said makes me still less inclined to follow any calling which would lead me to connection with it. Heartless and depraved I have heard it to be from others besides yourself, and I feel as though I were chosen by Alla to win renown; it can only be gained by treading in your footsteps, and behold me ready to follow you whithersoever you will lead me. I have no friend but yourself, no acquaintance even have I ever formed among the youths of the village; for when I saw them following what their fathers had done, and what appeared to me low and pitiful pursuits, my spirits rose against them, and I have cast them off. My only friend is the old Moola, who would fain persuade me to become one like himself, and spend my days reading the Koran; but there is nothing stirring in his profession, though it is a holy one, and it consequently holds out no inducements to me, or any hope of gratifying