It was but a minute’s work to get back upon the top of a coach, where I lay and let the cinders do their worst. The next stop was a junction, where I intended to get off and cross the line into Washington. The only train in sight was a westbound passenger waiting on a sidetrack. I was afraid to hang around, and when it pulled out I went underneath on the rods and got back into Vancouver after an absence of five hours. I planted the watch in the railroad yards, and never saw it again.
On my way uptown to get a room, I emptied the bill fold and purse, throwing them away. In the room I looked over the money, and found I had enough to keep me six months, if I kept away from the faro tables.
The fat pocketbook held no money, but was bulging with valuable personal papers. Looking through them I saw that their owner was one of the higher officials of the Canadian Pacific Railway. I realized there would be a terrific roar in the morning, and was on the point of burning the papers and destroying the pocketbook when the thought came to me that I could gain nothing by that, while I would be causing the owner an immense loss and no end of inconvenience. I secreted the pocketbook in the rear of the hotel, and went to bed trying to think up some safe
way of returning it to the owner. No use in inflicting a profitless injury on him; and its return might take the sharp edge off his resentment.
CHAPTER XVIII
Discarding my cinder-burnt clothes for a new outfit the next day, I bought a ticket for Victoria, B.C. On my way to the boat that evening I dropped the fat pocketbook into a mail box, where I knew it would be found, then examined, and returned to the loser.
When I first began stealing I had but a dim realization of its wrong. I accepted it as the thing to do because it was done by the people I was with; besides, it was adventurous and thrilling. Later it became an everyday, cold-blooded business, and while I went about it methodically, accepting the dangers and privations it entailed, I was fully aware of the gravity of my offenses. Every time I stole a dollar I knew I was breaking a law and working a hardship on the loser. Yet for years I kept on doing it. I wonder how many of us quit wronging others for the best reason of all—because it is wrong, and we know it. Any thief that can’t or doesn’t put himself in his victim’s place, in the place of the copper that pinches him, or in the place of the judge who sentences him, is not a complete thief. His narrow-mindedness will prevent him from doing his best work and also shut him off from opportunities to help and protect himself when he is laid by the heels.
Nobody wants to live and die a criminal. They all hope to quit some day, usually when it’s almost too late. I will say right here to any thief who thinks of quitting that if he can put himself in the other fellow’s place he has something substantial to start on; and if he can’t do it, he’ll never get anywhere.
I always figured that when I had a man’s money or valuables he had suffered enough. What sense in destroying his personal papers, or keeping heirlooms of no value except to him, or subjecting him to any loss that would be profitless to me? In the case of this sleeper in his private car, I saw the money and watch meant little to him. The papers meant much. On top of that, his peace of mind was disturbed, and his sense of safety and security shattered. He would probably lock his doors and sleep in a stuffy room the balance of his life, another great hardship. I had his valuables and intended to keep them. I could not restore his peace of mind or his sense of safety and security. I could restore his papers, and, at some small risk, did. Had I been chased or suspected I would have thrown them away, or in the fire without a thought. I took his property coolly, impersonally, as a picker removes the feathers from a fat goose. I returned his papers as the last touch to a workman-like job, as the cabinetmaker softly gives the last nail its last light tap.
To any thief who reads this and criticizes me as being over-thoughtful of the “sucker,” I reply that he is probably one of those guys that beats his victim up after robbing him; who strikes down women and children if they get in his way; who destroys paintings, vases, tapestries, and clothing wantonly, and winds up by letting some housewife chase him under a bed, where she holds him with her broomstick till the coppers arrive. He is not a thief, but a “mental case,” and belongs in a psychopathic ward.