Argosy, Vol. 118, No. 4 — page 114: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

584 ‘The yeggmen—the Bridgton safe- blowing robbers.”’ 3 “Oh, ‘Speck’? and ‘ Tudge,’”’ blurted the doctor, accustomed to the more inti- mate kind of nomenclature when he dis- cussed convicts. ‘“‘ Both of them were placid enough when they served .terms here before you came to bless and console the penitent, Chaplain. What seems to be their special itch this time?” ~ “JT am much in the dark, though I have encouraged them to confess their misdeeds to me,” said the chaplain, admitting his failure so ingenuously that he stirred a grin on the physician’s countenance. ‘“ But Samuel Fogg—’’ ‘“That’s ‘Tudge.’ He fizzes so vio- lently over the S in Sam that he gave up calling himself by his right name in his early youth.” ‘He has made some shockingly profane observations regarding some unnamed per- son who has injured him, so he says.” * Oh, well!. Don’t pay much attention to ‘em,’ advised the doctor, transferring his interest to the vials in his medicine case. “Most of ’em in here are nursing a grouch in default: of something better to take up their minds.” ‘“ But it’s going to be distinctly dreadful for this unknown person when those men get out,” demurred the chaplain. ‘I’m really terrified by their threats. They talk of nothing less than murder—and murder by lingering torture!” There was so much apprehensiveness in the good man’s tone and manner that the prison doctor, grown gray in the service, ‘laughed. ‘“ In pursuit of your general ben- evolence, parson, it should be your great aim to get at the name of this imperilled unknown and warn him to go up in a’ balloon.” ‘““T have done my honest best,” declared the chaplain, too earnest in the matter to perceive banter in the doctor’s advice. “But when they are calm they shrewdly hide their secret; when they are wrought up in passion, as they so often are, they be- come so incoherent that I cannot under- stand.” “Then they are playing it safe both ways, chaplain!” The physician snapped THE ARGOSY. the catches of his case and rose. The con- versation had been going on in the prison library, where the doctor had a desk and a reserve medicine cabinet. “Just a moment, Dr. Shepard! You have had much experience. I feel the need of a little advice. The warden has told me that I may select an assistant for the library among the convicts. What do you think of the man, Douglass, for the posi- tion?” - “Did Warden Cates recommend him?” ‘“No! Oh, no! I can’t say that he did. Not in so many words. He spoke of a man af some intelligence. I believe the name of Douglass did come up. I got the impres- sion, somehow, that the warden was some- what interested i in this convict.” The doctor made quick survey of the room to make sure that there were no of- ficial eavesdroppers. ‘‘ You must remem- ber that your dealing with a lifer, chap- lain. state I was talking about a little while ago. Between you and me—and let it go no far- ther-——I’m afraid the old man is easing up on the lifers a bit too much. This new- fangled prison régime they’re preaching all over the country sounds good, but human nature must be considered.- Two weeks ago the old man, as you know, took eleven lifers for a walk in the park, simply on their words of honor!” ‘But the expression on their faces when You must reckon with. that mental. they came back with him—and shook hands .with him—it was glorious!” - “ Uhuh,” grunted the veteran. ‘ But the old man is new here, the same as you. He'll wake up to the fact when something happens, that Warden Josselyn wasn’t far wrong in his system. ‘“‘ This isn’t a high school—this is a State’s prison,’ old Jos- selyn used to say. ‘And I’ll make ’em understand condemned well what it is.’ ‘““And now we’re having baseball games and a brass-band and lectures and movies and evening song-fests, chaplain, and all the other tommydingle that can be thought of! I know that a good deal of it is your own idea, but this is a punitive institution, and you’re proceeding along wrong lines. You’d better let Convict Douglass stay in 5} NOOLK the shops where the chaps with the maga- |