"Now, I've thought it all out, ma'am, many a time. If there'd been anybody to take hold of us in the right way I don't believe we should have come out as we did. I wasn't bad all through then: I mean, I was ready to do a good turn if I could, an' bound for a lark anyhow. But we'd smuggled in novels and story-papers till our heads was full of what fine things we'd do. They didn't give us better things. There was books--yes, plenty of 'em--but mostly long-winded stuff about fellers that died young, bein' too good for this world. There wasn't anybody to tell us we'd a right to some fun, and the Lord meant us to enjoy life, nor to get us busy in some way that would take our minds off real wickedness. These preachers hadn't ever been boys: they'd been born in their white chokers, I believe, an' knew no more of real human nature than they did of common sense. If I had a boy growin' up I'd keep him hard at something, an' try an' have him like it, too. A boy don't mind work if there's anything he can see to be got by it. Why, see how I did. At fifteen out all night long, up an' down the river, schemin' all ways to circumvent the watchmen, for they're that 'cute it needs all your brains an' more to get ahead of 'em. You see, a ship'll come in an' unload partly, an' there's two or three days they're on the keen lookout till they're nigh empty; an' then's the best time for light plunder--ropes an' such. But I went in for reg'lar doin's--bags of coffee or spice, or anything goin'. We had a dodge for a good while they couldn't make out--goin' along soft, oars muffled, hardly drawin' a long breath, till we'd got under the dock, where I'd seen the coffee-bags lie, an' a man on 'em with pistol cocked. Then, slow an' easy, bore with a big auger up through them beams and straight into the bag, an' the coffee'd pour down into the bag we held under. Went off with seven bags that very way one night, an' I was that full of laugh! I walked back down the dock when we'd landed 'em, an' saw the watchman jest dancin' an' swearin', he was so mad. "'What's up?' I says, innocent as could be, goin' up to him. "'It's them d---- river-thieves,' he says, 'with a new kink,----'em! I'll be even with 'em yet. Here's seven holes right up through, an' the Lord only knows how they could do it an' I not hear 'em. They're that thick I believe there's one to every bag of coffee on ship or off; but I'll get 'em yet.' He looked at me sharp as a rat, but I kept my face straight till I'd walked off, an' then I believe I laughed a day without stoppin'.