I was glad when work became plentiful, and such customers could be dispensed with. For it did become plentiful. Several of our London magistrates gave him good work, and took a great interest in him. He was a constant visitor (for work) at the house of one of our judges. Many clergymen in North London treated him with confidence and respect, leaving him alone in their libraries for hours. Several of them called on him more than once, presumably about work, but in reality to strengthen and confirm him. Exact, methodical, industrious beyond measure, honest in his dealings, he was to me a friend, a study, and a delight. I never talked his past over with him, preferring to centre his hopes and his thoughts on the future. He spent many hours in my house, and one night over a pipe his secret came out. I told him that I could not understand how such an intelligent, industrious, skilful workman as he was could be a burglar. He not only knew it was wrong and a crime, but he also knew it was folly, and could not pay. He looked at me for a moment, and then said: ‘You have seen the power of drink; you know the fascination of gambling. Bring drink, gambling, horse-racing, and roll them into one, and they do not equal the fascination of burglary. The silence of the night, every sense on the alert, the element of danger, the chances of failure and success, all combine to make burglary a fascination. Why do some men get drunk? Because they must. So I was a burglar because I was compelled to be a burglar.’
There was no doubt about the truth of this; it admitted of no argument, for his manner of saying it was convincing. But it troubled me, for I felt that the demon might not be dead, but only sleeping, while he himself laughed at the idea that he could again commit burglary. I had misgivings, and began to cast about for some new weapon wherewith to fight his enemy. He was then living and working in one furnished room, for beyond his tools, etc., he had no goods. After he left me I said to myself: ‘This man wants a stake in society--something to lose.’ I provided that something next morning, for I took an unfurnished house for him. I stood security for sufficient goods to furnish it nicely, the payments to extend over two years. He and his wife moved in, taking with them the tools, and when I called on them in their new home both of them cried like children. I explained to him the conditions on which the goods would belong to him, and what pride he would feel and what satisfaction he would enjoy when he felt his home was his own, the result of his own honest labours. Satisfaction! Why, he felt ecstatic joy at the thought of it; his eyes fairly glistened, and he told me that he would never waste a penny or an hour till he had paid for everything. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘and when you have worked for the goods, and paid for them, and they are your own, how would you like some rascally burglar to rap you on the head some night, and then clear your home out.’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘that’s a shrewd hit, but he had better not try it.’ I said no more to him, but stayed for a cup of tea, when we drank success to his new home.