I was so intent on watching the old man’s magic transformation from a shattered wreck into a sleeping cherub that the boss Chinaman’s return escaped me. He touched my shoulder and I followed him into a small room in a rear corner of the loft, where I found Chew Chee. He shook my hand awkwardly. His English was almost forgotten. All he could say was, “You good man, you good man.”
The boss Chinaman was full of business. He drew out some American gold pieces. “I pay you. Chew Chee pay me some time.”
I explained to him that I had not come for money; that I was there to see Chew Chee and make friends of his friends, and that if I ever needed money or help I would ask for it and expect it.
“Well, then,” he said, returning the gold to his pocket, “I give you China letter to my company man. You come my store to-morrow night.”
He went away and Chew Chee insisted that I go with him and meet his “cousins.” We walked across the city to a laundry where I was royally received. Chew Chee was the only Chinese that had a word of English, but the party was a success anyway. They produced their finest liquor, their lichee nuts, their daintiest cakes, and choicest tea. The hop layout was spread, and Chew Chee rolled and toasted me a pill that I smoked just by way of being a sociable, good fellow. The pill made me drowsy. A bunk was prepared and I slept out the night peacefully and safely in the midst of my friends. I bade Chew Chee good-by in the morning, and never saw him again.
That night, having nothing else to do, I went down to the China store. The boss had my letter ready. I thanked him for it, and putting it in my pocket gave it no further thought. And yet that letter snatched me clear of the law’s clutches on a night when I was caught in a burglary, overpowered, hog-tied, and waiting for “the wagon.”
I marvel to this day I did not quit my stealing right then and there. I had all the best of it. I had escaped a sure conviction and sentence. I could have returned to the “American side” and the Canadian authorities would have given me good riddance. Yet the thought of turning to the right, squaring myself, and starting anew never entered my mind. Probably youthful egotism, which is nothing but confidence born of ignorance, whispered to me that I could beat a game I knew to be wrong and full of dangers. So without stopping to cast up accounts or take stock, I blithely looked about me for fresh endeavors. My money was fast dwindling, more must be had; and nightly I prowled the town with the single purpose of locating anything I could do by myself.
It’s difficult to explain to a layman the pride of a professional thief. Nevertheless he must have pride or he would steal his clothes, beat his board bills, and borrow money with no thought of repaying it. He doesn’t do those things day after day, but day after day he takes chances and is proud that he can keep his end up and pay for the things he needs. All wrong, of course, but there it is. If I had had brains enough to grease a griddle, I would have taken a hundred dollars from the boss Chinaman in the matter of Chew
Chee and gone off somewhere, got a job, and tried to do the right thing by myself and others. But no, I was a journeyman; I had served a long and careful apprenticeship; professional pride—I don’t know what else to call it—would not permit me to take the Chinaman’s money for rescuing him from our common enemy, the law, and I went out to get money in my own way.
I was wrong. I knew I was wrong, and yet I persisted. If that is possible of any explanation it is this: From the day I left my father my lines had been cast, or I cast them myself, among crooked people. I had not spent one hour in the company of an honest person. I had lived in an atmosphere of larceny, theft, crime. I thought in terms of theft. Houses were built to be burglarized, citizens were to be robbed, police to be avoided and hated, stool pigeons to be chastised, and thieves to be cultivated and protected. That was my code; the code of my companions. That was the atmosphere I breathed. “If you live with wolves, you will learn to howl.”