You can't win

Do I look like one? I turn my chair so I can look in the mirror. I don’t see the face of a librarian. There is no smooth, high, white forehead. I do not see the calm, placid, co...

I was a problem to my father, running loose about the hotel while he was at work, and finally he took me to a Catholic school one hundred miles away. On that short trip my fathe...

I wanted to kiss my favorite teacher good-by, but didn’t quite dare do it. So I rode down to the station with Tommy, who bought me a fifty-cent knife, out of his salary, only tw...

In his new position father was forced to travel much, often leaving me to my own devices for weeks and sometimes months. I was put up at a small boarding house kept by a widow,...

“Give me a name, any name you like,” said the madam as we went downstairs. “I want you to meet my girls. They’ll all be glad to see you again.”

As we walked to our boarding house I told my father the whole story of my job in the cigar store, my collecting for the milkman, my arrest, and our rescue of Julia. He listened...

I was taken downstairs and locked in a cell; I saw no more of the “bull pen” where I spent the night. My cellmate was a handsome, smiling young fellow about twenty-two or twenty...

There was a legend on the road that the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City was a veritable storehouse of gold, silver, and precious stones and it was this that lured Smiler bac...

To say I was shocked, stunned, or humiliated on entering the penitentiary would not be the truth. It would not be true in nine cases out of any ten. It would be true if a man we...

An apprentice to a mob of yeggs has to do the rough, unskilled work just as if he were learning a trade from any craftsman. I was sent out to get dynamite, caps, and fuse at a r...

We arrived in San Francisco safely and without incident. The first thing was to get rooms. My experience in the matter of Smiler inclined me toward a room by myself. Sanc, alway...

During Sanc’s absence I worked industriously, bettering his instructions by renting two rooms a day and making the duplicate keys. In most instances the clerks returned my money...

Having plenty of time and spending money I visited San Jose, towns down the peninsula, and across the bay—always with an eye to business. Jewelry-store windows are fascinating t...

The money was returned promptly and a bond of friendship and confidence was formed that remains unbroken. I came to know him as “Rebel George,” prince of bunko men, the man who...

During my stay in San Francisco I lived at the Reno House, a small workingman’s lodgings in Sacramento Street. It was owned by a man named Rolkin, a carpenter, who invested his...

Summer came and the memorable World’s Fair. I saw it all, but it put an awful dent in my bankroll and winter was coming. I heard wonderful tales of New York City and its opportu...

When spring came, my Chinese “tillicum,” which is Chinook for friend, and I were the only felony prisoners in the “skookum house,” or jail. The two half-breeds had finished thei...

Discarding my cinder-burnt clothes for a new outfit the next day, I bought a ticket for Victoria, B.C. On my way to the boat that evening I dropped the fat pocketbook into a mai...

At last I was sent for by the prison tailor to be fitted into a discharge suit, and knew that I hadn’t more than a week or ten days to do. A day or two later the same guards too...

Spring came. For me that meant moving, and while I was trying to decide where to go I made by chance the acquaintance of a coal miner who had worked in a small mine in one of th...

This strange coincidence of the marked piece of silver more than ever convinced me of the necessity for keeping something ahead so I wouldn’t be forced to go out and take long c...

The young fellow that helped me dispose of the stones was the wayward son of a fine family and it would not be right to them to use his name. I will call him “Spokane,” the mono...

My first few months in the county jail were put in hard enough. About all I did was hate Irish Annie, and plan ways and means to revenge myself on her. I kept close track of her...

I had money enough to last some little time, long enough to get my strength back, perhaps. I paid the landlady a month’s rent and told her I was a sick man and would be in my ro...