even in prison, and I was occasionally furnished money by my
messmates to buy bread from a baker's wagon which was outside the
walls. Well, after I had traded a few times with the baker's boy,
I succeeded in corrupting him. Yes, had him stealing from his
employer and selling to me at a discount. I was a good customer,
and being a prisoner, there was no danger of my meeting his
employer. You see the loaves were counted out to him, and he had
to return the equivalent or the bread. At first the bread cost me
ten cents for a small loaf, but when I got my scheme working, it
didn't cost me five cents for the largest loaves the boy could
steal from the bakery. I worked that racket for several months,
and if we hadn't been exchanged, I'd have broke that baker, sure.

"But the most successful scheme I worked was stealing the kidneys
out of beef while we were handling it. It was some distance from
the wharf to the warehouse, and when I'd get a hind quarter of
beef on my shoulder, it was an easy trick to burrow my hand
through the tallow and get a good grip on the kidney. Then when
I'd throw the quarter down in the warehouse, it would be minus a
kidney, which secretly found lodgment in a large pocket in the
inside of my shirt. I was satisfied with one or two kidneys a day
when I first worked the trick, but my mess caught on, and then I
had to steal by wholesale to satisfy them. Some days, when the
guards were too watchful, I couldn't get very many, and then
again when things were lax, 'Elijah's Raven' would get a kidney
for each man in our mess. With the regular allowance of rations
and what I could steal, when the Texas troops were exchanged, our
mess was ragged enough, but pig-fat, and slick as weasels. Lord
love you, but we were a great mess of thieves."