In the midst of plenty I found myself starving, and in self-defense turned to the more direct business of highway robbery. My experience with house burglary in the small hours of the night left me a nervous wreck and an opium smoker. Almost every house prowler turns to booze or drugs. Reader, I’ll ask you if you wouldn’t take a jolt of booze or hop after an experience such as this?

You are a burglar; you have put in a week “tabbing up” a residence. You decide to “make” it; it looks all right; no children, you haven’t seen a dog. The night arrives. You jump into the yard. It’s two o’clock. You look the house over. Every door and window fastened, not even an open coalhole, no porch to go up. You go back to a kitchen window and perform a very delicate operation⁠—taking a pane of glass out piece by piece. Then you put your hand in, release the catch, and raise the window slowly, noiselessly. You find inside on the windowsill bottles, boxes, corkscrews, can openers, and a toothbrush. These you pick up, one at a time, and place outside, below the window.

Now you are in the window, and you find that below, inside, is the kitchen sink. You get in without disturbing dishes or pans and open the kitchen door, so you will have a getaway in case anything causes you to hurry out. You have been almost an hour getting in the house and you haven’t started on the job yet.

It is very dark in the house, but you light no matches, nor do you use a flashlight; you are an expert, you know your business. Your years at this work have developed a “cat” sense in you. You can sense an object in front of you without seeing or feeling it. You feel your way slowly, silently into the dining room. Your eyes are getting accustomed to the dark and you distinguish a few objects⁠—table, chairs, sideboard. You sit in a chair and remove your shoes, shoving them down in your back pockets, heels up.