Thieves' Wit: An Everyday Detective Story

An Everyday Detective Story
BY HULBERT FOOTNER
A. L. BURT COMPANY Publishers New York
Published by arrangement with George H. Doran Company
Copyright, 1918, By George H. Doran Company Printed in the United States of America

My first case!—with what an agreeable thrill a professional man repeats the words to himself. With most men I believe it is as it was with me, not the case that he intrigues for and expects to get but something quite different, that drops out of Heaven unexpected and undeserved like most of the good things of life.
Every now and then in an expansive moment I tell the story of my case, or part of it, whereupon something like the following invariably succeeds:
Why don't you write it down?
I never learned the trade of writing.
But detective stories are so popular!
Yes, because the detective is a romantic figure, a hero, gifted with almost superhuman keenness and infallibility. Nobody ever accused me of being romantic. I am only an ordinary fellow who plugs away like any other business man. Every day I am up against it; I fall down; some crook turns a trick on me. What kind of a story would that make?