"Stanley Field runs around town in a crazy old country buggy, just
like a farmer. He took this method of going about when the great
teamsters' strike was on, and he was a member of the Merchants'
committee.
"But I will bet you a good cigar that there are any number of little
snippety ten-dollar clerks in the great establishment of which Stanley
Field is the head, who would feel themselves eternally disgraced if
they were seen in that buggy.
"Not for little mister-ten-dollar clerk! No, sir. He must go out
and spend three dollars for a cab if he wants to get down town to a
theatre. It is just this silly pride that makes forgers and embezzlers.
"My advice to young men would be, 'Keep your mind clean, your body
clean and your clothes neat and clean. Never mind about fancy show.
Men will respect you more if you follow this advice than they will if
you squander money foolishly in the effort to put up a false front
which deceives no one.'"
Out of hundreds of cases which Wooldridge has run down, where
embezzlement, forgery and theft, even of the pettiest sort, was at the
bottom of the crime, the great detective declares that fully half of
the cases had their origin in this silly attempt to appear something
more than the real thing. Silly pride is a teacher of crime, and a
sure school mistress she is.
And the absurdity, the bally foolishness of it all, is that these
pitiful attempts deceive no one. Every one knows solidity when they
see it, just as they know sham when they see it. A self-respecting
young man cannot afford to make of himself a sham, even by taking a
cab when the millionaires walk or take the street car.