The story I told had only one weak spot. There was $400 more in my pocketbook than I thought, and this one discrepancy made them lock me up.
That night I was placed in a cell with an intoxicated woman. I was able to send out and get a bottle of whiskey, but not for myself. About midnight the woman woke up and was glad of a drink. I not only gave her one, but many, until she was in a stupor and made no protest when I changed clothes with her.
In those days, in Boston, it was usually the custom to let intoxicated persons sleep in a cell and then to put them out on the street in the morning without bringing them to court.
In the morning I pretended to be half sober and protested violently against being thrown out in the cold. But they pushed me out onto the sidewalk, much to my outward grief and inward joy.
I borrowed the price of a ticket to New York, leaving my money in the police station and my jewels at Springfield. Thus a week of hard, nerve-wrecking work netted me absolutely not one cent, but in reality the loss of my jewels, my time, and considerable money.
CHAPTER XII
GOOD DEEDS WHICH CRIMINALS DO AND WHICH SHOW THAT EVEN THE WORST THIEF IS NEVER WHOLLY BAD
A life of crime is a life of hard work, great risk, and, comparatively speaking, small pay. Anyone who has followed these articles will agree at once that whatever the criminal gets out of his existence he pays very dearly for. Not only is he constantly running great physical dangers—the risk of being shot or otherwise injured and of being caught and imprisoned—but many of his most carefully planned criminal enterprises are doomed to failure and he has only his labor for his pains.