gentleman." And I did, and behaved a darn sight more like one than the people I waited on. The result was that I got to thinking of myself as a man that wasn't getting what by rights belonged to him, and I went to work to correct that with all the natural intelligence I had in me, which was considerable.
For some years I was mighty successful. Plain burglary was my specialty because I liked the excitement of it; but I was handy at the side lines, too, and when it came to con games or even such youthful pranks as nicking a pocketbook or wrist-bag I was right on the job, and here my looks helped me a lot. Once or twice I've bluffed out a sucker that as good as saw me take the goods. I knew how to dress and how to walk into a big ballroom and how to order a dinner in a swell restaurant and how to talk to a lady in the deck chair next to mine. Yes, my son, I have seen life.
The first time I got pinched, and I tell it to my shame, was right here in Paris, and all along of a piece of sheer, light-hearted foolishness. I'd come over from London with a running-mate, just for a spree. We were both flush and doing the swell act. It was the week of the Grand Prix de Steeplechase out at Auteuil, and we went to the races, not on business, mind you, but just for fun. While we were standing by the paying-booth watching the types cash in, along comes a big, whiskered Russian with a whole fistful of winning tickets. The guy handed him out a big wad of bank-notes, which Mr. Russian crams into the side pocket of his trousers, then saunters over to the betting-booths.
