In looking about for some worthwhile endeavor, I came upon an instance of carelessness on the part of a businessman that I never saw equaled in all my years of stealing. It cost him a small fortune in diamonds and sent him into the bankruptcy court. The Christmas holidays were coming on, and the jewelry store in this mining camp spread out a display of stones that would have done credit to any large city. I was naturally attracted; and began investigating the jeweler’s system. I found that he slept on the premises in a room back of his storeroom. He testified in court later that he carried no burglary insurance, that he could not get fire insurance because the town had no fire department, and that he slept in his store to protect himself in case of fire or attempted theft. I watched him closely through every business hour of the day⁠—from seven to eight o’clock one day, from eight to nine the next, from nine to ten the next⁠—and so on through the entire day from his opening hour till he closed at night. I found that he left his store in darkness to save on the light bill, and to my amazement I also found that, instead of locking his safe carefully and completely at night, he gave the combination knob only a quarter turn, leaving it “on the quarter,” or only partly locked and at the mercy of anyone with a working knowledge of combination locks.

This putting out of the lights and careless locking of his safe was entirely due to a feeling of security because he slept in his place of business.

After gathering every scrap of information available, I was sure I could “take” the spot if I got a fair break on the luck. The rear room of the place was used as a workshop. This made it possible to enter the back door without waking the owner, who slept in a small room between the shop and the big front storeroom. When I decided to go against this thing, I sat down and looked far ahead.