One night, about a week after this event in my life, I was called to the door of my house. I found a stranger who asked if I were a certain party. I answered in the affirmative. Straightway he proceeded to tell me that I was under arrest. Of course this was what I had all along been expecting, and so it wasn’t very surprising. It was the culmination of my fears, and I was sort of dead to any emotion. This detective was good to me. He was a great big fellow with a pretty good heart. Next morning at the station house the firm was inclined to treat me leniently. The ring had been recovered, and on the promise of my father to look after me, and on my own promise to behave in the future, the judge dismissed the case. I soon found the old environment calling me in tones which I could not resist. I slipped back again to the old pals and companionships. The ice was broken. I found each succeeding act against the law much easier of commission, until the habit became formed. Crime to the professional thief is nothing more or less than habit. That is why the reforming of such is so difficult. I lost all sight of the morals. The right or wrong of an act never enters into the mind of a criminal. His senses in this respect have become atrophied. Each act is a business proposition, considered from a business standpoint, and measured only by dollars and cents, and the opportunity for a clean “getaway.” I did not confine myself to shoplifting. I soon graduated from this class into something bigger. I remembered the teachings of school days, the copybooks wherein were facsimiles of checks, promissory notes, etc. I soon put this learning into criminal practice. Suggestion, while perhaps not a direct contributory cause of crime, is nevertheless so intricately interwoven with the big causative agencies that it is mighty difficult to say what part it does play in the formation of the criminal. That it plays a big part there is no gainsaying. A mind lacking will power is like a sheep--ever willing to follow a leader. If that mind possesses criminal tendencies, a method of crime is easily suggested by simply reading of other crimes. I know not whether it is pertinent to the query or not, but one of the big facts about the men in the underworld is that nearly all are inveterate readers of the daily press.