The son of a master thief asked his father to teach him the secrets of the trade.
The old thief agreed and that night took his son to burglarize a large house.
While the family was asleep, he silently led his young apprentice into a room
that contained a clothes closet. The father told his son to go into the closet
to pick out some clothes. When he did, his father quickly shut the door and
locked him in. Then he went back outside, knocked loudly on the front door,
thereby waking the family, and quickly slipped away before anyone saw him. Hours
later, his son returned home, bedraggled and exhausted. "Father,"
he cried angrily, "Why did you lock me in that closet? If I hadn't been
made desperate by my fear of getting caught, I never would have escaped. It
took all my ingenuity to get out!" The old thief smiled. "Son, you
have had your first lesson in the art of burglary."