I cannot help comparing those swell guys whom I knew at Sing Sing with a third class pickpocket I met on the same bit. The big ones are dead or worse, but the other day I met, in New York, my old pickpocket friend in stir, Mr. Aut. I am positive that the hand-shake he gave me was only a muscular action, for Mr. Aut has "squared it", and the gun who has reformed and has become prosperous does not like to meet an old acquaintance, who knows too much about his past life. When I ran across him in the city I started in to talk about old times in stir and of pals we knew in the long ago, but he answered me by saying, "Nix", which meant "Drop It". To get him to talk I was forced to throw a few "Larrys" into him, such as: "Well, old man, only for your few mistakes of the past, you might be leader of Tammany Hall." Gradually he expanded and told me how much he had gained in weight since he left stir and what he had done for certain ungrateful grafters. He boasted that he could get bail for anyone to the sum of fifty thousand dollars, and he told the truth, for this man, who had been a third class dip, owns at the present time, three gin-mills and is something of a politician. He has three beautiful children and is well up in the world. His daughter was educated at a convent, and his son is at a well-known college. Yet I remember the time when this ex gun, Mr. Aut, and I, locked near one another in Sing Sing and consoled one another with what little luxuries we could get together. Our letters, booze and troubles were shared between us, and many is the time I have felt for him; for he had married a little shop girl and had two children at that time. When he got out of stir he started in to square it, that is, not to go to prison any more. He was wise and no one can blame him. He is a good father and a successful man. If he had been a better grafter it would not have been so easy for him to reform. I wish him all kinds of prosperity, but I don't like him as well as I did when we wore the striped garb and whispered good luck to one another in that mansion of woes on the Hudson. One of Mr. Aut's possessions makes me smile whenever I think of it. In his swell parlor, over a brand new piano, hangs an oil painting of himself, in which he takes great pride. I could not help thinking that that picture showed a far more prosperous man and one in better surroundings than a certain photograph of his which is quite as highly treasured as the more costly painting; although it is only a tintype, numbered two thousand and odd, in the Rogues' Gallery. CHAPTER IX. _In Stir and Out._