We had to part them by force, and she called me a monster and a brute, which I don’t think I am, though I did feel a little like one at that moment. Whether Jim had any prompter to his first crime, other than poverty or the desire for tobacco and other luxuries, I never knew. If he had, the man was probably one of the working plumbers, and possibly took warning by Jim’s detection and pilfered no more. At the end of the thirty days his mother was over at the jail door to receive him with open arms and take him home with her. He promised there, at the jail gate, that he would have done with crime for ever. I heard him speak the words, and I believe he sincerely meant to keep the pledge. But there were two things which neither he nor his mother calculated upon. The first was that the taint of crime was now upon him. Who would employ a lad who had been convicted and imprisoned for theft? The second was still more serious, though at the time it probably seemed trifling indeed. In prison, Jim had met his fate in the shape of a young fellow of about his own age, named Joe Knevitt. Joe was the very antipodes of Jim in nature and disposition, yet a very strong friendship appears to have sprung up between them. Joe was sly, cold, cautious, and thoroughly unscrupulous with friend or foe; Jim was daring, hot-headed, impulsive, and passionate. Joe was a professional thief by birth and training; Jim was the reverse. Joe was as cunning a rascal of his age as ever came through my hands, and could never be limed for any but the most trifling sentences, and probably did not reveal his real character to his new acquaintance. When Jim was set at liberty Joe had a week or two to remain in jail, so they might have been separated for ever but for the taint of crime.