"But it's all right, because I don't want to disgrace my folks. They don't know where I am, and I wouldn't have my mother know for anything. You see, I'm the black sheep of the family, the rest are all right. I'm the only one that ain't goin' straight. But when I get out of here I mean to go straight. Say, Tom, do you think I can get a job, here in Auburn? My bit is up in December, and I should like to stay here and get straight before I go back home." "When you get out," is my answer, "it will be up to me to stand treat for a dinner of beefsteak and fried potatoes, at any rate. And I'll do the best I can to help you get a job, Joe, if you really do mean to go straight. But in that neither I nor any one else can help you; you know you'll have to do that yourself." Poor Number Four! I have not the slightest doubt he means what he says, but here again--this cursed System. It is particularly deadening to a young fellow like Joe. He evidently has just that lively, good-natured, shiftless, irresponsible temperament which needs to be carefully trained in the bearing of responsibility. While Joe and I are conversing, Number Eight makes his one remark. "Would there be a job for a bricklayer around here?" I don't know, and tell him so; but add, as in Joe's case, that if he means to go straight I will gladly do what I can for him; and in any event I consider that I owe each of them a good dinner. Thus it is agreed that they will all dine with me in turn upon the happy occasions of their release. "By the way, Tom, did you go up to that Bertillon room?" Joe is off on a new tack. "Oh, yes. I did all the regular stunts." "Were you measured and photographed, and all that?" "Yes, and my finger prints taken. I went through the whole thing." "Gee! Well, then, they'll have your picture in the rogues' gallery, won't they, along with the rest of us?" "I suppose they will," is my answer, and then I tell how my scars and marks were all discovered and duly set down in the record; and wind up with a variation of the same mild joke which so bored the clerk of the Bertillon room. "And do you know, boys, after he had got me all sized up and written down, I felt as if it would never be safe for me to adopt burglary as a profession; and I've always rather looked forward to that." My companions are not bored but appreciative, they laugh with some heartiness. Then after a pause Joe says quite seriously, "Well say, Tom! I can just tell you one thing, you needn't ever have any fear that your house will be entered!" "Oh! Do you think the crooks will all recognize me as one of themselves?" "Sure!" is Joe's hearty rejoinder. He evidently considers it a compliment, and I accept it as such. At any rate I have apparently hit upon rather a novel form of burglary insurance.