I have said that Raymond was a millionaire, and I said in previous chapters that crime does not pay--how is it possible to reconcile these two statements? We shall see.
Among all my old acquaintances and associates in the criminal world, perhaps no one serves better as an example of the truth that crime does not pay than this very millionaire burglar, this man who had earned the title of the "Prince of Safe Blowers." For a time he seemed to have everything his heart could desire--a mansion, servants, liveried equipages, a yacht; and it all crumbled away like a house of cards, vanished like the wealth of Aladdin in the Arabian Nights. And so Raymond, most "successful" bank robber of the day, lived to learn the lesson that crime does not pay.
Raymond was a Massachusetts boy--bright, wide awake, but headstrong. Born of an excellent family and well educated, he formed bad habits and developed a passion for gambling.
Unable to earn honestly all he needed to gratify his passion for gambling, Raymond soon drifted into the companionship of some professional thieves he had met in the army. From that time his downfall was rapid; he never earned another honest dollar. Like myself and many other criminals who later achieved notoriety in broader fields, he first tried picking pockets. He had good teachers and he was an apt pupil. His long, slender fingers seemed just made for the delicate task of slipping watches out of men's pockets and purses out of women's handbags. Soon he had plenty of money and a wide reputation for his cleverness in escaping arrest.
Aside from his love for faro and roulette, Raymond was always a prudent, thrifty man. In those early days he picked pockets so skillfully and disposed of his booty to the "fences" so shrewdly that it was not long before he had enough capital to finance other criminals. The first manifestation of the executive ability which was one day to make him a power in the underworld was his organization of a band of pickpockets. Raymond's word was law with the little group of young thieves he gathered around him. He furnished the brains to keep them out of trouble and the cash to get them out if by chance they got in. Every morning they met in a little Canal Street restaurant to take their orders from him--at night they came back to hand him a liberal share of the day's earnings.