About this same time I was faced with a serious problem. How was I to prepare myself for the future? There had to be more to crime than lifting Get-Stuffed bars. Some of the answers I saw clearly. Money was what I wanted. Other people's money. Money is locked away, so the more I knew about locks the more I would be able to get this money. For the first time in school I buckled down to work. My grades soared so high that my teachers began to feel there might be. hope for me yet. I did so well that when I elected to study, the trade of locksmith they were only too eager to oblige. It was supposed to be a three-year course, but I learned all there was to know in three months. I asked permission to take the final examination. And was reftised.

Things were just not done that way, they told me. I would proceed at the same stately pace as the others and in two years and nine months I would get my diploma, leave the school-and enter the ranks of the wage slaves.

Not very likely. I tried to change my course of study and was informed that this was impossible. I had locksmith stamped on my forehead, metaphorically speaking of course, and it would remain there for life. They thought.

I began to cut classes and avoid the school for days at a time. There was little they could do about this, other than administer stern lectures, because I showed up for all the examinations and always scored the highest grades. I ought to, since I was making the most of my training in the field. I carefully spread my attentions around so the complacent citizens of the city had no idea they were being taken. A vending machine would yield a few bucks in silver one day, a till at the parking lot the next. Not only did this field work perfect my talents but it paid for my education. Not my school education of course-by law I had to remain there until the age of seventeen-but in my free time.