After he left I lay awhile thinking over the matter. I knew well enough that I was what the world calls a scamp, and I knew also that I had got little good out of the fact. If a man is what people call virtuous, and fails in life, he gets credit at least for the virtue; but when a man is a rascal, and breaks down at the trade, somehow or other people don't credit him with the intelligence he has put into the business,--and this I call hard. I never had much experience of virtue being its own reward; but I do know that, when rascality is left with nothing but the contemplation of itself for comfort, it is by no means refreshing. Now this is just my present position; and if I did not recall with satisfaction the energy and skill with which I did my work, I should be nothing but disgusted at the melancholy spectacle of my failure. I suppose that I shall at least find occupation in reviewing all this, and I think, therefore, that I shall try to give a plain and straightforward account of the life I have led, and the various devices by which I have sought to get my share of the money of my countrymen. I want it to be clearly understood, at the beginning, that in what I may have to say, I shall stick severely to the truth, without any overstrained regard for my neighbors' feelings. In fact, I shall have some little satisfaction when I do come a little heavy on corn or bunyon, because for the past two years the whole world appears to have been engaged in trotting over mine with as much certainty as if there were no other standing-room left in creation. I shall be rather brief about my early life, which possesses little or no interest.