“That’s the guy. So now you know. What he said to me, I say to you. Do you want to join the gang?”
“But what am I supposed to do?”
“That depends on the business in hand.... If you accept, you’ll live an easy life, have a swell dame ... and there’ll be no danger.... It’s up to you.”
“I don’t know what to say, boy. If it means being up to rascality, I almost prefer living as I am.”
“Man! That depends upon what you call rascality. Do you call deceiving rascality? Then you have to deceive. There’s no other way out. Either work or trick people out of it, for as to being presented with money, make up your mind they don’t do such things.”
“Yes, that’s true enough.”
“Why, my boy, everything is trickery. Business and robbery are the same thing. The only difference is that in business you’re a respectable person, while for robbery they take you to jail.”
“Do you really believe so ...?”
“Sure I do. What’s more, I believe that there are only two kinds of men in the world: the first live well and rob either labour or money; the second live badly and are robbed.”
“Say, you’re talking sense, you are!”