CHAPTER I
TIDE WATER CLAM
My friend, it's my belief that when it rains every third drop lands on a crook. You've no idea what a lot there are, and the only wonder is how they make a living. But your most dangerous crook is the gentleman variety, and that was easy for me because my father's family was about the best in the United States, barring only my mother's. His stock was pure English and hers Dutch; you'll find both names in the school histories; both families had signers of the Declaration. They were both thoroughbreds, all right. The only trouble was that they were never married, and that made a lot of trouble for me, afterwards.
I spent the first six years of my life in a pretty little cottage down Boston way, and about the only person I saw was my old nursery governess, Ma'm'selle Durand, or Tante Fi-Fi, as I called her. Then, as far as I could make out, my father lost his fortune and his nerve at the same time, and they found him in his library—dead. That settled my mother, and a little later Tante Fi-Fi faded away, and I found myself bawling my lungs open in the state asylum for orphans.
Young as I was, I couldn't stand it very long, so one hot day in July I ambled out, slipped down to a pond that was near by, hid my clothes under some stones, and splashed around. Then I came out cry-
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