During the next three years, at the expiration of which I made my first trip to Sing Sing, I stole a great deal of money and lived very high. I contracted more bad habits, practically ceased to see my family at all, lived in a furnished room and "hung out" in the evening at some dance-hall, such as Billy McGlory's Old Armory, George Doe's or "The" Allen's. Sheenie Annie was my sweetheart at this period, and after we had made a good touch what times we would have at Coney Island or at Billy McGlory's! Saturday nights in the summer time a mob of three or four of us, grafters and girls, would go to the island and stop at a hotel run by an ex-gun. At two or three o'clock in the morning we'd all leave the hotel, with nothing on but a quilt, and go in swimming together. Sheenie Annie, Blonde Mamie and Big Lena often went with us. At other times we took respectable shop-girls, or even women who belonged to a still lower class. What boy with an ounce of thick blood in his body could refuse to go with a girl to the Island? And Billy McGlory's! What times we had there, on dear old Saturday nights! At this place, which contained a bar-room, dance-room, pool-room and a piano, congregated downtown guns, house-men and thieves of both sexes. No rag-time was danced in those days, but early in the morning we had plenty of the cancan. The riots that took place there would put to shame anything that goes on now.[A] I never knew the town so tight-shut as it is at present. It is far better, from a moral point of view than it has ever been before; at least, in my recollection. "The" Allen's was in those days a grade more decent than McGlory's; for at "The's" nobody who did not wear a collar and coat was admitted. I remember a pal of mine who met a society lady on a slumming expedition with a reporter. It was at McGlory's. The lady looked upon the grafter she had met as a novelty. The grafter looked upon the lady in the same way, but consented to write her an article on the Bowery. He sent her the following composition, which he showed to me first, and allowed me to copy it. I always did like freaks. I won't put in the bad grammar and spelling, but the rest is: "While strolling, after the midnight hour, along the Lane, that historic thoroughfare sometimes called the Bowery, I dropped into a concert hall. At a glance, I saw men who worked hard during the week and needed a little recreation. Near them were their sisters (that is, if we all belong to the same human family), who had fallen by the wayside. A man was trying to play a popular song on a squeaky piano, while another gent tried to sing the first part of the song, when the whole place joined in the chorus with a zest. I think the song was most appropriate. It was a ditty of the slums entitled, 'Dear Old Saturday Night.'"