To any thief who reads this and criticizes me as being over-thoughtful of the “sucker,” I reply that he is probably one of those guys that beats his victim up after robbing him; who strikes down women and children if they get in his way; who destroys paintings, vases, tapestries, and clothing wantonly, and winds up by letting some housewife chase him under a bed, where she holds him with her broomstick till the coppers arrive. He is not a thief, but a “mental case,” and belongs in a psychopathic ward.

At Victoria I put in a few very pleasant months. I joined the colony of Chinese and opium smugglers who ran their freight across the line in fast, small boats at night into Port Townsend, Anacortes, or Seattle, Washington. The manufacture of smoking opium was then a legalized industry in Canada, and the smugglers were welcomed and harbored because they brought much American gold to the Canadian side. Being in the company of these characters I was accepted by the police as one of them, and went my way unmolested.

One fatal evening, as I stood watching a faro game making mental bets and winning every one, the devilish hunch came to me that I was lucky and ought to make a play. My resistance reached the vanishing point. I made a bet, lost it, got stuck, and feverishly played in my last dollar.

This gambling habit is the curse of a thief’s life. He loses his last dime and is forced to go out in haste for more money. Like a mechanic broke and out of a job, he takes the first one in sight. He has no time to pick and choose, or calculate carefully what he is about; he must eat, and the minute he goes broke he gets hungry. Gambling keeps him broke, forces him to steal small money on short notice and take prohibitive and unnatural chances.

I could have borrowed money enough to expense myself to Vancouver where I had the valuable watch planted, but there had been such a cry in the papers about the car burglary, the loser was so powerful and influential, and the danger of trying to sell it so great, that I decided to leave it there till later, and take it to the American side.