Perhaps it was the sight or smell of the hop, but anyway I got the yen-yen and shook as in an ague. My eyes watered and I grew as pale as a sheet. I thought my bones were unjointing and took a pint of whiskey; it had no effect. Then Billy acted as my physician and prepared a pill for me. So vanished one good resolution. My only excuse to myself was: Human nature is weak, ain't it? No sooner had I taken the first pill than a feeling of ecstasy came over me. I became talkative, and Billy, noticing the effect, said: "Jim, before you try to knock off the hop, you had better wait till you reach the next world." The opium brought peace to my nerves and dulled my conscience and I had a long talk with Billy and Ida about old pals. They told me who was dead, who were in stir and who were good (prosperous). Not many days after my opium fall I got a note from Ethel, who had heard that I had come home. In the letter she said that she was not happy with her husband, that she had married to please her father and to get a comfortable home. She wanted to make an appointment to meet me, whom, she said, she had always loved. I knew what her letter meant, and I did not answer it, and did not keep the appointment. My relation to her was the only decent thing in my life, and I thought I might as well keep it right. I have never seen her since the last time she visited me at Auburn. For some time after getting back from stir I tried for a job, but the effort was only half-hearted on my part, and people did not fall over themselves in their eagerness to find something for the ex-convict to do. Even if I had had the best intentions in the world, the path of the ex-convict is a difficult one, as I have since found. I was run down physically, and could not carry a hod or do any heavy labor, even if I had desired to. I knew no trade and should have been forever distrusted by the upper world. The only thing I could do well was to graft; and the only society that would welcome me was that of the under world. My old pals knew I had the requisite nerve and was capable of taking my place in any good mob. My resolutions began to ooze away, especially as at that time my father was alive and making enough money to support the rest of the family. So I had only myself to look out for--and that was a lot; for I had my old habits, and new ones I had formed in prison, to satisfy. When I stayed quietly at home I grew intensely nervous; and soon I felt that I was bound to slip back to the world of graft. I am convinced that I would never have returned to stir or to my old trade, however, if my environment had been different, on my release, from what it had been formerly; and if I could have found a job. I don't say this in the way of complaint. I now know that a man can reform even among his old associates. It is impossible, as the reader will see, I believe, before he finishes this book, for me ever to fall back again. Some men acquire wisdom at twenty-one, some not till they are