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Autobiography of a Thief

<h2> CHAPTER V. Mamie and the Negotiable Bonds. </h2> Johnny met Mamie when he was sixteen. At that time he was looked up to in the neighborhood as one of the most promising of the younger thieves. He was an intelligent, enterprising boy and had, moreover, received an excellent education in the school of crime. His parents had died before he was twelve years old, and after that the lad lived at the Newsboys' Lodging House, in Rivington Street, which at that time and until it ceased to exist was the home of boys some of whom afterwards became the swellest of crooks, and some very reputable citizens and prominent politicians. A meal and a bed there cost six cents apiece and even the youngest and stupidest waif could earn or steal enough for that. Johnny became an adept at "hooking" things from grocery stores and at tapping tills. When he was thirteen years old he was arrested for petty theft, passed a night in the [90] police station, and was sent to the Catholic Protectory, where he was the associate of boys much older and "wiser" in crime than he. At that place were all kinds of incurables, from those arrested for serious felonies to those who had merely committed the crime of being homeless. From them Johnny learned the ways of the under world very rapidly. After a year of confinement he was clever enough to make a key and escape. He safely passed old "Cop O'Hagen," whose duty it was to watch the Harlem bridge, and returned to the familiar streets in lower New York, where the boys and rising pickpockets hid him from the police, until they forgot about his escape. From that time Johnny's rise in the world of graft was rapid. He was so successful in stealing rope and copper from the dry-docks that the older heads took him in hand and used to put him through the "fan-light" windows of some store, where his haul was sometimes considerable. He began to grow rich, purchased some shoes and stockings, and assumed a "tough" appearance, with great pride. He rose a step higher, boarded tug-boats and ships anchored at the docks, and constantly increased his income. The boys looked upon [91] him as a winner in his line of graft, and as he gave "hot'l" (lodging-house) money to those boys who had none, he was popular. So Johnny became "chesty", began to "spread" himself, to play pool, to wear good linen collars and to associate with the best young thieves in the ward. It was at this time that he met Mamie, who was a year or two younger than he. She was a small, dark, pale-faced little girl, and as neat and quick-witted as Johnny. She lived with her parents, near the Newsboys' Lodging House, where Johnny still "hung out". Mamie's father and mother were poor, respectable people, who were born and bred in the old thirteenth ward, a section famous for the many shop girls who were fine "spielers" (dancers). Mamie's mother was one of the most skillful of these dancers, and therefore Mamie came by her passion for the waltz very naturally; and the light-footed little girl was an early favorite with the mixed crowd of dancers who used to gather at the old Concordia Assembly Rooms, on the Bowery. It was at this place that Johnny and Mamie met for the first time. It was a case of mutual admiration, and the boy and girl started in to [92] "keep company." Johnny became more ambitious in his line of graft; he had a girl! He needed money to buy her presents, to take her to balls, theatres and picnics; and he began to "gun", which means to pickpockets, an occupation which he found far more lucrative than "swagging" copper from the docks or going through fan-light windows. He did not remain content, however, with "dipping" and, with several much older "grafters", he started in to do "drag" work. "Drag" work is a rather complicated kind of stealing and success at it requires considerable skill. Usually a "mob" of four grafters work together. They get "tipped off" to some store where there is a line of valuable goods, perhaps a large silk or clothing-house. One of the four, called the "watcher", times the last employee that leaves the place to be "touched". The "watcher" is at his post again early in the morning, to find out at what time the first employee arrives. He may even hire a furnished room opposite the store, in order to secure himself against identification by some Central Office detective who might stroll by. When he has learned the hours of the employees he reports to his "pals". At [93] a late hour at night the four go to the store, put a spindle in the Yale lock, and break it with a blow from a hammer. They go inside, take another Yale lock, which they have brought with them, lock themselves in, go upstairs, carry the most valuable goods downstairs and pile them near the door. Then they go away, and, in the morning, before the employees are due, they drive up boldly to the store with a truck; representing a driver, two laborers, and a shipping clerk. They load the wagon with the goods, lock the door, and drive away. They have been known to do this work in full view of the unsuspecting policeman on the beat. While Johnny had advanced to this distinguished work, Mamie, too, had become a bread-earner, of a more modest and a more respectable kind. She went to work in a factory, and made paper boxes for two and one-half dollars a week. So the two dressed very well, and had plenty of spending money. Unless Johnny had some work to do they always met in the evening, and soon were seriously in love with one another. Mamie knew what Johnny's line of business was, and admired his cleverness. The most progressive [94] people in her set believed in "getting on" in any way, and how could Mamie be expected to form a social morality for herself? She thought Johnny was the nicest boy in the world, and Johnny returned her love to the full. So Johnny finally asked her if she would "hitch up" with him for life, and she gladly consented. They were married and set up a nice home in Allen Street. It was before the time when the Jews acquired an exclusive right to that part of the town, and in this neighborhood Mamie and Johnny had many friends who used to visit them in the evening; for the loving couple were exceedingly domestic, and, when Johnny had no business on hand, seldom went out in the evening. Johnny was a model husband. He had no bad habits, never drank or gambled, spent as much time as he could with his wife, and made a great deal of money. Mamie gave up her work in the shop, and devoted all her attention to making Johnny happy and his home pleasant. For about four years Johnny and Mamie lived very happily together. Things came their way; and Johnny and his pals laid by a considerable amount of money against a rainy [95] day. To be sure, they had their little troubles. Johnny "fell," that is to say, was arrested, a score of times, but succeeded in getting off. It was partly due to good luck, and partly to the large amount of fall-money he and his pals had gathered together. On one occasion it was only Mamie's cleverness and devotion that saved Johnny, for a time, from the penitentiary. One dark night Johnny and three pals, after a long conversation in the saloon of a ward politician, visited a large jewelry store on Fulton Street, Brooklyn, artistically opened the safe, and made away with fifteen thousand dollars. It was a bold and famous robbery, and the search for the thieves was long and earnest. Johnny and his friends were not suspected at first, but an old saying among thieves is, "wherever there are three or four there is always a leak," a truth similar to that announced by Benjamin Franklin: "Three can keep a secret when two are dead." One of Johnny's pals, Patsy, told his girl in confidence how the daring "touch" was made. That was the first link in the long chain of gossip which finally reached the ears of the watching detectives; and the result was that [96] Patsy and Johnny were arrested. It was impossible to "settle" this case, no matter how much "fall-money" they had at their disposal; for the jeweler belonged to the Jewelers' Protective Association, which will prosecute those who rob anyone belonging to their organization. As bribery was out of the question, Johnny and Patsy, who were what is called in the underworld "slick articles," put their heads together, and worked out a scheme. The day of their trial in the Brooklyn Court came around. They were waiting their turn in the prisoner's "pen," adjoining the Court, when Mamie came to see them. The meeting between her and Johnny was very affecting. After a few words Mamie noticed that her swell Johnny wore no neck-tie. Johnny, seemingly embarrassed, turned to a Court policeman, and asked him to lend him his tie for a short time. The policeman declined, but remarked that Mamie had a tie that would match Johnny's complexion very well. Mamie impulsively took off her tie, put it on Johnny, kissed him, and left the Court-house. Johnny was to be tried in ten minutes, but [97] he induced his lawyer to have the trial put off for half an hour; and another case was tried instead. Then he took off Mamie's neck-tie, tore the back out of it, and removed two fine steel saws. He gave one to Patsy, and in a few minutes they had penetrated a small iron bar which closed a little window leading to an alley. Patsy was too large to squeeze himself through the opening, but "stalled" for Johnny while the latter "made his gets". When they came to put these two on trial there was a sensation in Court. No Johnny! Patsy knew nothing about it, he said; and he received six years for his crime. But Johnny's day for a time in the "stir" soon came around. He made a good "touch", and got away with the goods, but was betrayed by a pal, a professional thief who was in the pay of the police, technically called a "stool-pigeon". Mamie visited Johnny in the Tombs, and when she found the case was hopeless she wanted to go and steal something herself so that she might accompany her boy to prison. But when Johnny told her there were no women at Sing Sing she gave up the idea. Johnny went to prison for four years, and Mamie went to a tattooer, and, as a [98] proof of her devotion, had Johnny's name indelibly stamped upon her arm. Mamie, in consequence of her fidelity to Johnny, whom she regularly visited at Sing Sing, was a heroine and a martyr in the eyes of the grafters of both sexes. The money she and Johnny had saved began to dwindle, and soon she was compelled to work again at box-making. She remained faithful to Johnny, although many a good grafter tried to make up to the pretty girl. When Johnny was released from Sing Sing, Mamie was even happier than he. They had no money now, but some politicians and saloon-keepers who knew that Johnny was a good money-getter, set them up in a little house. And they resumed their quiet domestic life together. Their happiness did not last long, however. Johnny needed money more than ever now and resumed his dangerous business. He got in with a quartette of the cleverest safe-crackers in the country, and made a tour of the Eastern cities. They made many important touches, but finally Johnny was again under suspicion for a daring robbery in Union Square, and was compelled to become a solitary fugitive. He sent word, through an old-time [99] burglar, to Mamie, exhorted her to keep up the home, and promised to send money regularly. He was forced, however, to stay away from New York for several years, and did not dare to communicate with Mamie. At first, Mamie tried to resume her work at box-making. But she had had so much leisure and had lived so well that she found the work irksome and the pay inadequate. Mamie knew many women pickpockets and shop-lifters, friends of her husband. When some of these adventurous girls saw that Mamie was discontented with her lot, they induced her to go out and work with them. So Mamie became a very clever shop-lifter, and, for a time, made considerable money. Then many of the best "guns" in the city again tried to make up to Mamie, and marry her. Johnny was not on the spot, and that, in the eyes of a thief, constitutes a divorce. But Mamie still loved her wayward boy and held the others back. In the meantime Johnny had become a great traveller. He knew that the detectives were so hot on his track that he dared to stay nowhere very long; nor dared to trust anyone: so he worked alone. He made a number [100] of daring robberies, all along the line from Montreal to Detroit, but they all paled in comparison with a touch he made at Philadelphia, a robbery which is famous in criminal annals. He had returned to Philadelphia, hoping to get a chance to send word to Mamie, whom he had not seen for years, and for whom he pined. While in the city of brotherly love he was "tipped off" to a good thing. He boldly entered a large mercantile house, and, in thirteen minutes, he opened a time-lock vault, and abstracted three hundred thousand dollars worth of negotiable bonds and escaped. The bold deed made a sensation all over the country. The mercantile house and the safe manufacturers were so hot for the thief that the detectives everywhere worked hard and "on the level". Johnny was not suspected then, and never "did time" for this touch. For a while he hid in Philadelphia; boarded there with a poor, respectable family, representing himself as a laborer out of work. He spent the daytime in a little German beer saloon, playing pinocle with the proprietor; and was perfectly safe. [101] But his longing for Mamie had grown so strong that he could not bear it. He knew that the detectives were still looking for him because of the old crime, and that they were hot to discover the thief of the negotiable bonds. He sent word to Mamie, nevertheless, through an old pal he found at Philadelphia, and arranged to see her at Mount Vernon, near New York. The two met in the side room of a little saloon near the railway station; and the greeting was affectionate in the extreme. They had not seen one another for years! And hardly a message had been exchanged. After a little Johnny told Mamie, proudly, that it was he who had stolen the negotiable bonds. "Now," he added, "we are rich. After a little I can sell these bonds for thirty cents on the dollar and then you and I will go away and give up this life. I am getting older and my nerve is not what it was once. We'll settle down quietly in London or some town where we are not known, and be happy. Won't we, dear?" Mamie said "Yes," but she appeared confused. When Johnny asked her what was [102] the matter, she burst into tears; and choked and sobbed for some time before she could say a word. She ordered a glass of whiskey, which she never used to drink in the old days, and when the bar-tender had left, she turned to the worried Johnny, embraced him tenderly and said, in a voice which still trembled: "Johnny, will you forgive me if I tell you something? It's pretty bad, but not so bad as it might be, for I love only you." Johnny encouraged her with a kiss and she continued, in a broken voice: "When you were gone again, Johnny, I tried to make my living at the old box-making work; but the pay wasn't big enough for me then. So I began to graft—dipping and shop-lifting—and made money. But a Central Office man you used to know—Jim Lennon—got on to me." "Jim Lennon?" said Johnny, "Sure, I knew him. He used to be sweet on you, Mamie. He treated you right, I hope." Mamie blushed and looked down. "Well?" said Johnny. "Jim came to me one day," she continued, "and told me he wouldn't stand for what I was doing. He said the drygoods people [103] were hollering like mad; and that he'd have to arrest me if I didn't quit. I tried to square him with a little dough, but I soon saw that wasn't what he was after." "'Look here, Mamie,' he finally said. 'It's just this way. Johnny is a good fellow, but he's dead to you and dead to me. He's done time, and that breaks all marriage ties. Now, I want you to hitch up with me, and lead an honest life. I'll give you a good home, and you won't run any more risk of the pen!'" Johnny grew very pale as Mamie said the last words; and when she stopped speaking, he said quietly: "And you did it?" Mamie again burst into tears. "Oh, Johnny," she cried, "what else could I do. He wouldn't let me go on grafting, and I had to live." "And so you married him?" Johnny insisted. The reply was in a whisper. "Yes," she said. For the next thirty seconds Johnny thought very rapidly. This woman had his liberty in her hands. He had told her about the negotiable bonds. Besides, he loved Mamie and understood the difficulty of her position. His [104] life as a thief had made him very tolerant in some respects. He therefore swallowed his emotion, and turned a kind face to Mamie. "You still love me?" he asked, "better than the copper?" "Sure," said Mamie, warmly. "Now listen," said Johnny, the old business-like expression coming back into his face. "I am hounded for the old trick; and the detectives are looking everywhere for these negotiable bonds, which I have here, in this satchel. Can I trust you with them? Will you mind them for me, until things quiet down?" "Of course, I will," said Mamie, gladly. So they parted once more. Johnny went into hiding again, and Mamie went to the detective's house, with the negotiable bonds. She had no intention of betraying Johnny; for she might be arrested for receiving stolen goods; and, besides, she still loved her first husband. So she planted the bonds in the bottom of the detective's trunk. Here was a pretty situation. Her husband, the detectives, and many other "fly-cops" all over the country, were looking for these negotiable bonds, at the very moment when they [105] were safely stowed away in the detective's trunk. Mamie and Johnny, who continued to meet occasionally, often smiled at the humor of the situation. Soon, however, suspicion for the Philadelphia touch began to attach to Johnny. Mamie's detective asked her one evening if she had heard anything about Johnny, of late. "Not for years," said Mamie, calmly. But one night, several Central Office men followed Mamie as she went to Mt. Vernon to meet Johnny; and when the two old lovers parted, Johnny was arrested on account of the fifteen thousand dollar robbery in Brooklyn, from the penalty of which he had escaped by means of Mamie's neck-tie many years before. The detectives suspected Johnny of having stolen the bonds, but of this they could get no evidence. So he was sent to Sing Sing for six years on the old charge. When he was safely in prison the detectives induced him to return the bonds, on the promise that he would not be prosecuted at his release, and would be paid a certain sum of money. The mercantile house agreed, and Johnny sent word to Mamie to give up the bonds. Then, of course, the detective knew about the trick that Mamie [106] had played him. But he, like Johnny, was a philosopher, and forgave the clever woman. When he first heard of it, however, he had said to her, indignantly: "You cow, if you had given the bonds to me, I would have been made a police captain, and you my queen." As soon as Johnny got out of stir, Mamie quit the detective, and the couple are now living again together in a quiet, domestic manner, in Manhattan. [107] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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