Eddie Graney needs no introduction here. I only hope this story has as many readers as he has friends. While he is known and respected for his square decisions as a referee of big fights, I think his fame rests chiefly on the fact that while he has the finest billiard rooms west of—oh, well, west of anywhere—he has not yet learned how to play billiards. Graney gave me my first job—cashier in his pool room—handling his money. After a few months a better job appeared. With a letter of introduction I saw Mr. B. F. Schlesinger of the Emporium. “Where did you work last?” he asked. “At Eddie Graney’s.” “And before that?” “At San Quentin, in the jute mill.” He knew all about me and put me to work as salesman in the book department. I knew something about books—I had been librarian at the county jail. I was honest—hadn’t stolen any of Graney’s money. I felt perfectly at ease among the books, and made good. Book selling grew dull later, and I was slated for a transfer to another department. At the manager’s office I was told that the only vacancy was on the ribbon counter. I looked in a mirror on the wall and saw a face in it that didn’t seem to belong behind the ribbon counter. I said: “Mr. Schlesinger, this is a great life if you know when to weaken. I think this is where I’ll weaken.” At lunch time I saw Mr. Older and told him about it. Fortunately, there was a vacancy at the *Bulletin* in the circulation department just then and I got the job. I left the Emporium with the best wishes and good will of everybody I met there. When Mr. Older became editor of *The Call* he found a place there for me as librarian; I still have that job. In thirteen years I have learned to work—some day I may learn to like it. Yet it is so easy and simple and safe and secure that I now wonder how any man coming out of prison could think of doing anything else. The pity of it is that so many ex-prisoners who do think of trying to work can’t get it. I take no credit whatever for going to work. I could have done that years before. I quit stealing and learned working because I was in a hole where I could not do otherwise. I was in hock to friends who saved me from a heavy sentence, provided me with work, and expected only that I stay out of jail. That’s not asking much of a man—to keep out of jail. The judge who cut my sentence took a greater chance than I ever did. If I had gone back “sticking up” people, the judge’s critics could have said that he, and he alone, made it possible—and that’s precisely why I quit.