Lonzo and I, and Patsy, a grafter I had picked up about this time, made several fat trips to Philadelphia. At first we were leary of the department stores, there had been so many "hollers," and worked the "rattlers" (cars) only. We were told by some local guns that we could not "last" twenty-four hours in Philadelphia without protection, but that was not our experience. We went easy for a time, but the chances were too good, and we began voraciously to tear open the department stores, the churches and the theatres; and without a fall. Whenever anybody mentioned the fly-cops (detectives) of Philadelphia it reminded us of the inhabitants of Connecticut. They were not "dead": such a word is sacred. Their proper place was not on the police force, but on a shelf in a Dutchman's grocery store labelled the canned article. Philadelphia was always my town, but I never stayed very long, partly because I did not want to become known in such a fat place, and partly because I could not bear to be away from New York very long; for, although there is better graft in other cities, there is no such place to live in as Manhattan. I had no fear of being known in Philadelphia to the police; but to local guns who would become jealous of our grafting and tip us off.
On one of my trips to the City of Brotherly Love I had a poetical experience. The graft had been good, and one Sunday morning I left Dan and Patsy asleep, and went for a walk in the country, intending, for a change, to observe the day of rest. I walked for several hours through a beautiful, quiet country, and about ten o'clock passed a country church. They were singing inside, and for some reason, probably because I had had a good walk in the country, the music affected me strangely. I entered, and saw a blind evangelist and his sister. I bowed my head, and my whole past life came over me. Although everything had been coming my way, I felt uneasy, and thought of home for the first time in many weeks. I went back to the hotel in Philadelphia, feeling very gloomy, and shut myself up in my room. I took up my pen and began a letter to a Tommy (girl) in New York. But I could not forget the country church, and instead of writing to the little Tommy, I wrote the following jingles: