He had been told when he was very young, before the man and woman who
had brought him into the world had separated, not to crawl out on the
fire-escape, because he might break his neck, and later, after his
father had walked off Hegelman's Slip into the East River while very
drunk, and his mother had been sent to the penitentiary for grand
larceny, he had been told not to let the police catch him sleeping
under the bridge.
With these two exceptions he had been told to do as he pleased, which
was the very mockery of advice, as he was just about as well able to
do as he pleased as is any one who has to beg or steal what he eats
and has to sleep in hall-ways or over the iron gratings of warm
cellars and has the officers of the children's societies always after
him to put him in a "Home" and make him be "good."
"Snipes," as the trailer was called, was determined no one should ever
force him to be good if he could possibly prevent it. And he certainly
did do a great deal to prevent it. He knew what having to be good
meant. Some of the boys who had escaped from the Home had told him all
about that. It meant wearing shoes and a blue and white checkered
apron, and making cane-bottomed chairs all day, and having to wash
yourself in a big iron tub twice a week, not to speak of having to
move about like machines whenever the lady teacher hit a bell.
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