Back then, I was the kind of guy who did nothing but loaf around. I spent all day wandering the streets, and my only talents were a few petty scams and tricks to swindle people out of a little pocket change. I wasn't quite bad enough to make every household duck for cover when they saw me, but respectable families wanted nothing to do with me. They'd go out of their way to avoid me, thinking the lazy, shiftless air about me was bad luck.
One day, I was strolling down the street with both hands in my pockets when I spotted a fortune-telling stall set up at the corner of a busy market street. The old man running it was a stranger. From the look of him, he wasn't from around here, so he had to be new in town. An idea immediately popped into my head
