"I am going to try to get work here in your city," I said, "and I'd like to know beforehand how much leeway you are going to give me."
The portly thief-taker leaned back in his chair and regarded me with a coldly appraisive eye. He was a coarse-featured man with a face that would have fitted admirably in any rogues' gallery in the land.
"You're in bad, young fellow," he growled. "We've got plenty and more than enough of your kind in this town, without takin' on any more."
"But I am keeping my parole," I pleaded. "I have come to you like a man the first thing, and have made my report according to the conditions. Somebody has got to give me a chance."
"You'll earn it, damn' good and plenty, if you stay here to get it," was the gruff response. "What kind of a job are you lookin' for?"
It was hard to confide in such a man, even casually, but I had no choice.
"I am willing to take anything I can get, but my experience has been mostly in office work," I told him; adding: "I suppose I might call myself a fairly expert bookkeeper."
"Umph!" he grunted, shifting his cigar from one corner of the hard-bitted mouth to the other. "That means that you want to try for a job where you can work the till-tapping game again."
Not having as yet learned my lesson line by line, I was incautious enough to say: "I have yet to work it the first time."
"Like hell you have! See here, young fellow—you needn't spring that kind of talk on me. I know you and your kind up one side and down the other. You say you've put three years in 'stir' and that settles it." At this point he broke off short, righted his chair with a snap and reached for a bill-spindle on his desk. After a glance at one of the impaled memoranda he sat back again, chewing his cigar and staring into vacancy. A full minute elapsed before he deigned to become once more aware of my presence. Then he whirled upon me to rap out an explosive question.