"The thing that's troubling me now," said Mr. Yollop, as Smilk hung up the receiver and twisted his head slightly to peek out of the corner of his eye, "is how to get hold of my slippers. You've no idea how cold this floor is."
"If it's half as cold as the sweat I'm—-"
"We're likely to have a long wait," went on the other, frowning. "It will probably take the police a couple of hours to find this building, with absolutely no clue except the number and the name of the street."
"I'll tell you what you might do, Mr. Scollop, seein' as you won't trust me to go in and find your slippers for you. Why don't you sit on your feet? Take that big arm chair over there and—"
"Splendid! By jove, Cassius, you are an uncommonly clever chap. I'll do it. And then, when the police arrive, we'll have something for them to do. We'll let them see if they can find my slippers. That ought to be really quite interesting."
"There's something about you," said Mr. Smilk, not without a touch of admiration in his voice, "that I simply can't help liking."
"That's what the wolf said to Little Red Riding-Hood, if I remember correctly. However, I thank you, Cassius. In spite of the thump I gave you and the disgusting way in which I treated you, a visitor in my own house, you express a liking for me. It is most gratifying. Still, for the time being, I believe we can be much better friends if I keep this pistol pointed at you. Now we 'll do a little maneuvering. You may remain seated where you are. However, I must ask you to pull out the two lower drawers in the desk,—one on either side of where your knees go. You will find them quite empty and fairly commodious. Now, put your right foot in the drawer on this side and your left foot in the other one—yes, I know it's quite a stretch, but I dare say you can manage it. Sort of recalls the old days when evil-doers were put in the stocks, doesn't it? They seem to be quite a snug fit, don't they? If it is as difficult for you to extricate your feet from those drawers as it was to insert them, I fancy I'm pretty safe from a sudden and impulsive dash in my direction. Rather bright idea of mine, eh?"
"I'm beginnin' to change my opinion of you," announced Mr. Smilk.
Mr. Yollop pushed a big unholstered library chair up to the opposite side of the desk and, after several awkward attempts, succeeded in sitting down, tailor fashion, with his feet neatly tucked away beneath him.
"I wasn't quite sure I could do it," said he, rather proudly. "I suppose my feet will go to sleep in a very short time, but I am assuming, Cassius, that you are too much of a gentleman to attack a man whose feet are asleep."
"I wouldn't even attack you if they were snoring," said Cassius, grinning in spite of himself. "Say, this certainly beats anything I've ever come up against. If one of my pals was to happen to look in here right now and see me with my feet in these drawers and you squattin' on yours,—well, I can't help laughin' myself, and God knows I hate to."
"You were saying a little while ago," said Mr. Yollop, shifting his position slightly, "that you rather fancy the idea of being arrested. Isn't that a little quixotic, Mr. Smilk?"
"Huh?"
"I mean to say, do you expect me to believe you when you say you relish being arrested?"
"I don't care a whoop whether you believe it or not. It's true."
"Have you no fear of the law?"
"Bless your heart, sir, I don't know how I'd keep body and soul together if it wasn't for the law. If people would only let the law alone, I'd be one of the happiest guys on earth. But, damn 'em, they won't let it alone. First, they put their heads together and frame up this blasted parole game on us. Just about the time we begin to think we're comfortably settled up the river, 'long comes some doggone home-wrecker and gets us out on parole. Then we got to go to work and begin all over again. Sometimes, the way things are nowadays, it takes months to get back into the pen again. We got to live, ain't we? We got to eat, ain't we? Well, there you are. Why can't they leave us alone instead of drivin' us out into a cold, unfeelin' world where we got to either steal or starve to death? There wouldn't be one tenth as much stealin' and murderin' as there is if they didn't force us into it. Why, doggone it, I've seen some of the most cruel and pitiful sights you ever heard of up there at Sing Sing. Fellers leadin' a perfectly honest life suddenly chucked out into a world full of vice and iniquity and forced—absolutely forced,—into a life of crime. There they were, livin' a quiet, peaceful life, harmin' nobody, and bing! they wake up some mornin' and find themselves homeless. Do you realize what that means, Mr. Strumpet? It means—"
"Yollop, if you please."
"It means they got to go out and slug some innocent citizen, some poor guy that had nothing whatever to do with drivin' them out, and then if they happen to be caught they got to go through with all the uncertainty of a trial by jury, never knowin' but what some pin-headed juror will stick out for acquittal and make it necessary to go through with it all over again. And more than that, they got to listen to the testimony of a lot of policemen, and their own derned fool lawyers, tryin' to deprive them of their bread and butter, and the judge's instructions that nobody pays any attention to except the shorthand reporter,—and them just settin' there sort of helpless and not even able to say a word in their own behalf because the law says they're innocent till they're proved guilty,—why, I tell you, Mr. Dewlap, it's heart-breakin'. And all because some weak-minded smart aleck gets them paroled. As I was sayin', the law's all right if it wasn't for the people that abuse it."
"This is most interesting," said Mr. Yollop. "I've never quite understood why ninety per cent of the paroled convicts go back to the penitentiary so soon after they've been liberated."
"Of course," explained Mr. Smilk, "there are a few that don't get back. That's because, in their anxiety to make good, they get killed by some inexperienced policeman who catches 'em comin' out of somebody's window or—"
"By the way, Cassius, let me interrupt you. Will you have a cigar? Nice, pleasant way to pass an hour or two—beg pardon?"
"I was only sayin', if you don't mind I'll take one of these cigarettes. Cigars are a little too heavy for me."
"I have some very light grade domestic—"
"I don't mean in quality. I mean in weight. What's the sense of wastin' a lot of strength holding a cigar in your mouth when it requires no effort at all to smoke a cigarette? Why, I got it all figured out scientifically. With the same amount of energy you expend in smokin' one cigar you could smoke between thirty and forty cigarettes, and being sort of gradual, you wouldn't begin to feel half as fatigued as if you—"
"Did I understand you to say 'scientifically', or was it satirically?"
"I'm tryin' to use common, every-day words, Mr. Shallop," said Mr. Smilk, with dignity, "and I wish you'd do the same."
"Ahem! Well, light up, Cassius. I think I'll smoke a cigar. When you get through with the matches, push 'em over this way, will you? Help yourself to those chocolate creams. There's a pound box of them at your elbow, Cassius. I eat a great many. They're supposed to be fattening. Help yourself." After lighting his cigar Mr. Yollop inquired: "By the way, since you speak so feelingly I gather that you are a paroled convict."
"That's what I am. And the worst of it is, it ain't my first offense. I mean it ain't the first time I've been paroled. To begin with, when I was somewhat younger than I am now, I was twice turned loose by judges on what they call 'suspended sentences.' Then I was sent up for two years for stealin' something or other,—I forgot just what it was. I served my time and a little later on went up again for three years for holdin' up a man over in Brooklyn. Well, I got paroled out inside of two years, and for nearly six months I had to report to the police ever' so often. Every time I reported I had my pockets full of loot I'd snitched durin' the month, stuff the bulls were lookin' for in every pawn-shop in town, but to save my soul I couldn't somehow manage to get myself caught with the goods on me. Say, I'd give two years off of my next sentence if I could cross my legs for five or ten minutes. This is gettin' worse and worse all the—"
"You might try putting your left foot in the right hand drawer and your right foot in the other one," suggested Mr. Yollop.
Mr. Smilk stared. "I've seen a lot of kidders in my time, but you certainly got 'em all skinned to death," said he.
Mr. Yollop puffed reflectively for awhile, pondering the situation. "Well, suppose you remove one foot at a time, Cassius. As soon it is fairly well rested, put it back again and then take the other one out for a spell,—and so on. Half a loaf is better than no loaf at all."
Smilk withdrew his left foot from its drawer and sighed gratefully.
"As I was sayin'," he resumed, "if we could only put some kind of a curb on these here tender-hearted boobs—and boobesses—the world would be a much better place to live in. The way it is now, nine tenths of the fellers up in Sing Sing never know when they'll have to pack up and leave, and it's a constant strain on the nerves, I tell you. There seems to be a well-organized movement to interfere with the personal liberty of criminals, Mr. Poppup. These here sentimental reformers take it upon themselves to say whether a feller shall stay in prison or not. First, they come up there and pick out some poor helpless feller and say 'it's a crime to keep a good-lookin', intelligent boy like you in prison, so we're going to get you out on parole and make an honest, upright citizen of you. We're going to get you a nice job',—and so on and so forth. Well, before he knows it, he's out and has to put up a bluff of workin' for a livin'. Course, he just has to go to stealin' again. It makes him sore when he thinks of the good, honest life he was leadin' up there in the pen, with nothin' to worry about, satisfactory hours, plenty to eat, and practically divorced from his wife without havin' to go through the mill. If my calculations are correct, more than fifty per cent of the crime that's bein' committed these days is the work of paroled convicts who depended on the law to protect and support them for a given period of time. And does the law protect them? It does not. It allows a lot of pinheads to interfere with it, and what's the answer? A lot of poor devils are forced to go out and risk their lives tryin' to—"
"Just a moment, please," interrupted Mr. Yollop. "You are talking a trifle too fast, Cassius. Moderate your speed a little. Before we go any further, I would like to be set straight on one point. Do you mean to tell me that you actually prefer being in prison?"
"Well, now, that's a difficult question to answer," mused Mr. Smilk. "Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. It's sort of like being married, I suppose. Sometimes you're glad you're married and sometimes you wish to God you wasn't. Course, I've only been married three or four times, and I've been in the pen six times, one place or another, so I guess I'm not what you'd call an unbiased witness. I seem to have a leanin' toward jail,—about three to one in favor of jail, you might say, with the odds likely to be increased pretty shortly if all goes well. Do you mind if I change drawers?"
"Eh! Oh, I see. Go ahead."
Mr. Smilk put his right foot back into its drawer and withdrew the left.
"Gets you right across this tendon on the back of your ankle," he said. "Now, you take the daily life of the average laboring man," he went on earnestly. "What does he get out of it? Nothin' but expenses. The only thing that don't cost him something is work. And all the time he's at work his expenses are goin' on just the same, pilin' up durin' his absence from home. Rent, food, fuel, light, doctor, liquor, clothes, shoes,—everything pilin' up on him while he's workin' for absolutely nothin' between pay days. The only time he gets anything for his work is on pay day. The rest of the time he's workin' for nothin', week in and week out. Say he works forty-four hours a week. When does he get his pay? While he's workin'? Not much. He has to work over time anywhere from fifteen minutes to half an hour—on his own time, mind you—standin' in line to get his pay envelope. And then when he gets it, what does he have to do? He has to go home and wonder how the hell he's goin' to get through the next week with nothin' but carfare to go on after his wife has told him to come across. Now you take a convict. He hasn't an expense in the world. Free grub, free bed, free doctor, free clothes,—he could have free liquor if the keepers would let his friends bring it in,—and his hours ain't any longer than any union man's hours. He don't have to pay dues to any labor union, he don't have to worry about strikes or strike benefits, he don't give a whoop what Gompers or anybody else says about Gary, and he don't care a darn whether the working man gets his beer or whether the revenue officers get it. He—"
"Wait a second, please. Just as a matter of curiosity, Cassius, I'd like to know what your views are on prohibition."
"Are you thinkin' of askin' me if I'll have something to drink?" inquired Mr. Smilk craftily.
"What has that to do with it?"
"A lot," said Mr. Smilk, with decision.
"Do you approve of prohibition?"
"I do," said the rogue. "In moderation."
"Well, as soon as the police arrive I'll open a bottle of Scotch. In the meantime go ahead with your very illuminating dissertation. I am beginning to understand why crime is so attractive, so alluring. I am almost able to see why you fellows like to go to the penitentiary."
"If you could only get shut up for a couple of years, Mr. Wollop, you'd appreciate just what has been done in the last few years to make us fellers like it. You wouldn't believe how much the reformers have done to induce us to come back as soon as possible. They give us all kinds of entertainment, free of charge. Three times a week we have some sort of a show, generally a band concert, a movin' picture show and a vaudeville show. Then, once a month they bring up some crackin' good show right out of a Broadway theater to make us forget that it's Sunday and we'll have to go to work the next morning. Scenery and costumes and everything and—and—" Here Mr. Smilk showed signs of blubbering, a weakness that suddenly gave way to the most energetic indignation. "Why, doggone it, every time I think of what that woman done to me, I could bite a nail in two. If it hadn't been for—"
"Woman? What woman?"
"The woman that got me paroled out. She got I don't know how many people to sign a petition, sayin' I was a fine feller and all that kind o' bunk, and all I needed was a chance to show the world how honest I am and—why, of course, I was honest. How could I help bein' honest up there? What's eatin' the darn fools? The only thing you can steal up there is a nap, and you got to be mighty slick if you want to do that, they watch you so close. But do you know what's going on in this country right now, Mr. Popple? There's a regular organized band of law-breakers operating from one end of the nation to the other. We're tryin' to bust it up, but it's a tough job. The best way to reform a reformer is to rob him. The minute he finds out he's been robbed he turns over a new leaf and begins to beller like a bull about how rotten the police are. Ninety nine times out of a hundred he quits his cussed interferin' with the law and becomes a decent, law-observin' citizen. Our scheme is to get busy as soon as we've been turned loose and while our so-called benefactors are still rejoicin' over havin' snatched a brand from the burnin', we up and show 'em the error of their ways. First offenders get off fairly easy. We simply sneak in and take their silver and some loose jewelry. The more hardened they are, the worse we treat 'em. Ring leaders some times get beat up so badly it's impossible to identify 'em at the morgue. But in time we'll smash the gang, and then if a feller goes up for ten, twenty or even thirty years he'll know there's no underhanded work goin' on and he can settle down to an honest life. The only way to stop crime in this country, Mr. Yollop, is to—"
"Thank you."
"—is to make EVERYBODY respect the law. And with conditions so pleasant and so happy in the prison I want to tell you there's nobody in the country that respects and admires the law more than we do,—'specially us fellers that remember what the penitentiaries used to be like a few years ago when conditions were so tough that most of us managed to earn an honest livin' outside sooner than run the risk of gettin' sent up." He sighed deeply. Then with a trace of real solicitude in his manner: "Are your feet warm yet?"
"Warm as toast. Your discourse, Cassius, has moved me deeply. Perhaps it would comfort you to call up police headquarters again and tell 'em to hurry along?"
"Wouldn't be a bad idea," said Mr. Smilk. He took down the receiver. Presently: "Police headquarters? ... How about sending over to 418 Sagamore for that burglar I was speakin' to you about recently? ... Sure, he's here yet. ... The same name I gave you earlier in the evening. ... Spell it yourself. You got it written down on a pad right there in front of you, haven't you? ... Say, if you don't get somebody around here pretty quick, I'm goin' to call up two or three of the newspaper offices and have 'em send—... All right. See that you do." Turning to Mr. Yollop, he said: "The police are a pretty decent lot when you get to know 'em, Mr. Yollop. They do their share towards enforcin' the law. They do their best to get us the limit. The trouble is, they got to fight tooth and nail against almost everybody that ain't on the police force. Specially jurymen. There ain't a juryman in New York City that wants to believe a policeman on oath. He'd sooner believe a crook, any day. And sometimes the judges are worse than the juries. A pal of mine, bein' in considerable of a hurry to get back home one very cold winter, figured that if he went up and plead guilty before a judge he'd save a lot of time. Well, sir, the doggone judge looked him over for a minute or two, and suddenly, out of a clear sky, asked him if he had a family,—and when he acknowledged, being an honest though ignorant guy, that he had a wife and three children, the judge said, if he'd promise to go out and earn a livin' for them he'd let him off with a suspended sentence, and before he had a chance to say he'd be damned if he'd make any such fool promise, the bailiff hustled him out the runway and told him to 'beat it'. He had to go out and slug a poor old widow woman and rob her of all the money she'd saved since her husband died—say, that reminds me. I got a favor I'd like to ask of you, Mr. Yollop."
"I'm inclined to grant almost any favor you may ask," said Mr. Yollop, sympathetically. "I know how miserable you must feel, Cassius, and how hard life is for you. Do you want me to shoot you?"
"No, I don't," exclaimed Mr. Smilk hastily. "I want you to take my roll of bills and hide it before the police come. That ain't much to ask, is it?"
"Bless my soul! How extraordinary!"
"There's something over six hundred dollars in the roll," went on Cassius confidentially. "It ain't that I'm afraid the cops will grab it for themselves, understand. But, you see, it's like this. The first thing the judge asks you when you are arraigned is whether you got the means to employ a lawyer. If you ain't, he appoints some one and it don't cost you a cent. Now, if I go down to the Tombs with all this money, why, by gosh, it will cost me just that much to get sent to Sing Sing, 'cause whatever you've got in the shape of real money is exactly what your lawyer's fee will be, and it don't seem sensible to spend all that money to get sent up when you can obtain the same result for nothin'. Ain't that so?"
"It sounds reasonable, Cassius. You appear to be a thrifty as well as an honest fellow. But, may I be permitted to ask what the devil you are doing with six hundred dollars on your person while actively engaged in the pursuit of your usual avocation? Why didn't you leave it at home?"
"Home? My God, man, don't you know it ain't safe these days to have a lot of money around the house? With all these burglaries going on? Not on your life. Even if I had had all this dough when I left home to-night, I wouldn't have taken any such chance as leavin' it there. The feller I'm roomin' with is figurin' on turning over a new leaf; he's thinkin' of gettin' married for five or six months and I don't think he could stand temptation."
"Do you mean to say, you acquired your roll after leaving home tonight, eh?"
"To be perfectly honest with you, Mr. Moppup, I—"
"Yollop, please."
"—Yollop, I found this money in front of a theater up town,—just after the police nabbed a friend of mine who had frisked some guy of his roll and had to drop it in a hurry."
"And you want me to keep it for you till you are free again,—is that it?"
"Just as soon as the trial is over and I get my sentence, I'll send a pal of mine around to you with a note and you can turn it over to him. All I'm after, is to keep some lawyer from gettin'—"
"What would you say, Cassius, if I were to tell you that I am a lawyer?"
"I'd say you're a darned fool to confess when you don't have to," replied Mr. Smilk succinctly.
Mr. Yollop chuckled. "Well, I'm not a lawyer. Nevertheless, I must decline to act as a depository for your obviously ill-gotten gains."
"Gee, that's tough," lamented Mr. Smilk. "Wouldn't you just let me drop it behind something or other,—that book case over there say,—and I'll promise to send for it some night when you're out,—"
"No use, Cassius," broke in Mr. Yollop, firmly. "I'm deaf to your entreaties. Permit me to paraphrase a very well-known line. 'None so deaf as him who will not hear.'"
"If I speak very slowly and distinctly don't you think you could hear me if I was to offer to split the wad even with you,—fifty-fifty,—no questions asked?" inquired Cassius, rather wistfully.
"See here," exclaimed Mr. Yollop, irritably; "you got me in this position and I want you to get me out of it. While I've been squatting here listening to you, they've both gone to sleep and I'm hanged if I can move 'em. I never would have dreamed of sitting on them if you hadn't put the idea into my head, confound you."
"Let 'em hang down for a while," suggested Mr. Smilk. "That'll wake 'em up."
"Easier said than done," snapped the other. He managed, however, to get his benumbed feet to the floor and presently stood up on them. Mr. Smilk watched him with interest as he hobbled back and forth in front of the desk. "They'll be all right in a minute or two. By Jove, I wish my sister could have heard all you've been saying about prisons and paroles and police. I ought to have had sense enough to call her. She's asleep at the other end of the hall."
"I hate women," growled Mr. Smilk. "Ever since that pie-faced dame got me chucked out of Sing Sing,—say, let me tell you something else she done to me. She gave me an address somewhere up on the East Side and told me to come and see her as soon as I got out. Well, I hadn't been out a week when I went up to see her one night,—or, more strictly speakin', one morning about two o'clock. What do you think? It was an empty house, with a 'for rent' sign on it. I found out the next day she'd moved a couple of weeks before and had gone to some hotel for the winter because it was impossible to keep any servants while this crime wave is goin' on. The janitor told me she'd had three full sets of servants stole right out from under her nose by female bandits over on Park Avenue. I don't suppose I'll ever have another chance to get even with her. Everything all set to bind and gag her, and maybe rap her over the bean a couple of times and—say, can you beat it for rotten luck? She—she double-crossed me, that's what she—"
reflection.
All books are sourced from Project Gutenberg