thieves, and that I had just returned from Sing Sing. I was discharged, but fined five dollars. Blessed are the peacemakers,--but not in my case! I passed the next day looking for old girls and pals, but I found few of them. Many were dead and others were in stir or had sunk so far down into the under world that even I could not find them. I was only about thirty-two years old, but I had already a long acquaintance with the past. Like all grafters I had lived rapidly, crowding, while at liberty, several days into one. When I got back from my second bit the greater part of my life seemed to be made up of memories of other days. Some of the old pals I did meet again had squared it, others were "dead" (out of the game) and some had degenerated into mere bums. There are several different classes of "dead ones": 1. The man who has lost his nerve. He generally becomes a whiskey fiend. If he becomes hopelessly a soak the better class of guns shun him, for he is no good to work with. He will not keep an engagement, or will turn up at the place of meeting too late or too early. A grafter must be exactly on time. It is as bad to be too early as too late, for he must not be seen hanging around the place of meeting. Punctuality is more of a virtue in the under world than it is in respectable society. The slackest people I know to keep their appointments, are the honest ones; or grafters who have become whiskey fiends. These latter usually wind up with rot-gut booze and are sometimes seen selling songs on the Bowery. 2. The man who becomes a copper. He is known as a stool-pigeon, and is detested and feared by all grafters. Nobody will go with him. Sometimes he becomes a Pinkerton man, and is a useful member of society. When he loses his grip with the upper world, he belongs to neither, for the grafters won't look at him. 3. The man who knows a trade. This grafter often "squares" it, is apt to marry and remain honest. His former pals, who are still grafters, treat him kindly, for they know he is not a rat. They know, too, that he is a bright and intelligent man, and that it is well to keep on the right side of him. Such a man has often educated himself in stir, and, when he squares it, is apt to join a political club, and is called in by the leader to help out in an election, for he possesses some brains. The gun is apt to make him an occasional present, for he can help the grafter, in case of a fall, because of his connection with the politicians. This kind of "dead one" often keeps his friends the grafters, while in stir, next to the news in the city.