But I did get a lot of fresh and lively information out of those chaps with whom I was thrown in.
After a time they were not at all bashful about asking me if I wouldn’t like a lay in some of their operations.
They frankly said that they had the best luck in country communities. Understand that they proposed nothing except brace games! No safe-breakers in that lot! They said I had an honest way about me that would take well in the country districts.
My money was getting so low I listened with increasing interest. I cannot say that I was tempted, exactly. But I was beginning to wonder how I was ever going to make a go of it if I didn’t get some money. My Pacific trip was all off by that time! My capital had shrunk below the price of a ticket.
They told me that a regular village skinflint with lots of money was, in most cases, a prime victim if the right bait was offered; with the right bait he bit more easily than the more liberal kind of an individual, because the skinflint was more crazy to make money fast and was already used to getting high rates of interest for all money he let out. They were making constant search for old chaps in country communities, well-to-do men who would be tempted to grab at a rich chance or could be induced to serve as decoys to pull in the neighbors, provided a sufficient rake-off were offered.
There, too, was another thing which surprised me—that so often really prominent men could be secured as decoys. The knaves I was training with gave me a lot of stories of the kind; in most cases, so they said, the men seemed to talk themselves into believing that they were offering the neighbors an opportunity to make money.
If I had not been idle and very curious, and all the time wondering how I could make a little money for myself, a lot of this would have gone into one ear and out of the other.. But I was in the mood to take it all in, and so, in that foolish belief that I could write a story, I set down many names and many instances until I had well filled a sheaf of papers which I sewed together into a sort of note-book.
There were various side-lines of the craft of cheaters where I was allowed to be an observer. I watched one of the chaps make up his face for a trip and learned about false beards attached by spirit gum. There was a cute little mustache in his kit and I asked him to affix it to my upper lip. He allowed me to keep it on when I asked permission.
I felt so much confidence in that alteration of my features that I went directly to my room, put on that raiment of my yearning ambition, took in hand my cane, and went forth into the open.
One who has remained long within-doors gets used to the confinement after a time and the desire to go out is dulled; there are persons who have voluntarily remained in bed in perfect health for years; but, once the plunge outside is made, the desire for further liberty grows by what it grasps in the blessedness of outdoors. I determined to be free from then on and to test the quality of that freedom. It was astonishing what confidence I felt in myself when I walked abroad in that rig, casting side-glances at myself in store windows as I walked. It is amazing what the right sort of clothes will do for a man’s grip and grit.