All this time I grew steadily bolder and more desperate, and the day soon came when I took consequences very little into consideration. My father and mother sometimes learned of some exploit of mine, and a beating would be the result. I still got the blame for everything, as in school, and was sometimes punished unjustly. I was very sensitive and this would rankle in my soul for weeks, so that I stole harder than ever. And yet I think that there was some good in me. I was never cruel to any animals, except cats; for cats, I used to tie their tails together and throw them over a clothesline to dry. I liked dogs, horses, children and women, and have always been gentle to them. What I really was was a healthy young animal, with a vivid imagination and a strong body. I learned early to swim and fight and play base-ball. Dime and nickel novels always seemed very tame to me; I found it much more exciting to hear true stories about the grafters at the corner saloon!--big men, with whom as yet I did not dare to speak; I could only stare at them with awe. I shall never forget the first time I ever saw a pickpocket at work. It was when I was about thirteen years old. A boy of my own age, Zack, a great pal of mine, was with me. Zack and I understood one another thoroughly and well knew how to get theatre money by petty pilfering, but of real graft we were as yet ignorant, although we had heard many stories about the operations of actual, professional thieves. We used to steal rides in the cars which ran to and from the Grand Street ferries; and run off with overcoats and satchels when we had a chance. One day we were standing on the rear platform when a woman boarded the car, and immediately behind her a gentlemanly looking man with a high hat. He was well-dressed and looked about thirty-five years old. As the lady entered the car, the man, who stayed outside on the platform, pulled his hand away from her side and with it came something from her pocket--a silk handkerchief. I was on the point of asking the woman if she had dropped something, when Zack said to me, "Mind your own business." The man, who had taken the pocket-book along with the silk handkerchief, seeing that we were "next," gave us the handkerchief and four dollars in ten and fifteen cent paper money ("stamps"). Zack and I put our heads together. We were "wiser" than we had been half an hour before. We had learned our first practical lesson in the world of graft. We had seen a pickpocket at work, and there seemed to us no reason why we should not try the game ourselves. Accordingly a day or two afterwards we arranged to pick our first pocket. We had, indeed, often taken money from the pockets of our relatives, but that was when the trousers hung in the closet or over a chair, and the owner was absent. This was the first time we had hunted in the open, so to speak; the first time our prey was really alive.