It annoyed them all. They came and took all the boxes away again--jealousy,
I suppose. So at the end of February I was back in my old trenches again
and visitors were still saying, "Oh, _do_ you mind if I ring up So-and-so?"
and I was listening to myself answering, "Oh, _do_. No, of _course_ don't
bother about the twopence" (visitors always want calls just outside the
radius; I do myself).
The crisis came in March. It was then that I joined the criminal classes.
For many days I had haunted the telephone dump, taking a melancholy
pleasure in watching real engineers come out with real coin-boxes for other
people. No Peri at the golden gate ever looked more wistful. I know now
that it is opportunity that makes the criminal, and one day the opportunity
came. It came in the form of a young and evidently new hand, who emerged
from the dump and pitched upon me--me of all people--to ask, "Can you tell
me where this place is?" As he spoke he began to get out a slip with the
address, and in that moment my fate was sealed.
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