some day of graduating into a
rider or a tumbler, a ringmaster or a clown. He joined out in order that
among these congenial influences he might the quicker become an
accomplished thief.

Starting as a novice he had to carve out his own little niche in
company where the competition already was fierce. His rise, though, was
rapid. So far as the records show he was the first of the Monday guys.
He developed the line himself and gave to it its name. A Monday guy was
a plunderer of clotheslines. He followed the route of the daily street
parade; rather he followed a route running roughly parallel to it. He
set out coincidentally with it and he aimed to have his pilfering stint
finished when the parade was over. He prowled in alleys and skinned over
back fences, progressing from house yard to house yard while the parade
passed through the streets upon which the houses faced. From kitchen
boilers and laundry heaps, from wash baskets and drying ropes, he
skimmed the pick of what was offered--silk shirts, fancy hose, women's
embroidered blouses, women's belaced under-things. His work was made
comparatively easy for him, since the dwellers of the houses would be
watching the parade.

His strippings he carried to the show lot and there he hid them away.
That night in the privilege car the collections of the day would be
disposed of by sale or trade to members of the troupe and the affiliated
rogues. Especially desirable pieces might be reserved to be shipped on
to a professional receiver of stolen goods in a certain city. Naturally,
pickings were at their best on a Monday, for since Mother Eve on the
first Monday hanged her fig leaf out to dry, Monday has been wash day
the world over. Hence the name for the practitioner of the business.

Vince Marr did not very long remain a Monday guy. The risks were not
very great, everything considered. Suppose detection did come; suppose
the cry of "Stop thief!" was raised. Who would quit watching a circus
parade to join in a hunt for a marauder already vanished in a maze of
outbuildings and alleyways? Still there were risks to be taken, and the
rewards on the whole were small and uncertain. Before he reached his
nineteenth year young Marr was the manager of a weighing pitch.
Apparently he had but one associate in the enterprise; as a matter of
fact he had four. In the place where holidaying crowds gathered--on a
circus lot, at a street carnival, outside the gates of a county fair--he
and