Through the Shadows with O'Henry

CHAPTER XXI. Methods of O. Henry; his promotion; the singing of Sally Castleton; O. Henry's indifference; the explanation.

The shadows of a thousand Dick Prices and Ira Maralatts skulked like unhappy ghosts through the cell corridors of the Ohio penitentiary. The memory of a thousand tragedies seemed to abide in the very air of the ranges. Men who allowed themselves to come under the persistent gloom of these haunting presences went mad.

The rest of us sought an outlet in gayety—in a hundred trivial little incidents that would bring a laugh out of all proportion to their funniness. In self-defense, the convict becomes hardened to the brutal suffering of the life about him.

If any one had heard Billy Raidler, Bill Porter and I, as we talked and guffawed in the prison post- office, he would have rated us an unthinking trio of irresponsible scamps.

We never aired our melancholy, but we would wrangle and jest by the hour over the probable course a fly batting itself against the post-office window might take if we let it out—over the origin of the black race and the finish of the Caucasian family.

Or we would imagine that the prison was suddenly crushed to pieces in an earthquake, and we would begin to speculate on the menace of our presence to a terror-stricken society. No subject was too ridiculous to beguile an hour away.

Porter was not supposed to visit the post-office while he was on duty at the hospital. As he never violated any of the prison rules, he always made it a point to come on business. Billy Raidler was a semi-invalid, and offered an unfailing excuse. Billy's amber hair was falling out. He hounded Porter to bring him a remedy.

"Look here, Bill," the ex-train robber would say, "if you could get the arsenic out of that rock-ribbed old Coffin why can't you rouse the hair that ought to be on my scalp?"

Warden Coffin, by some mistake, had been given an overdose of arsenic. Antidotes failed. Porter was called in. He saved the life of Coffin. This incident happened before my arrival at the "pen," but Raidler never gave Porter any peace about it. Porter always maintained that the warden was dying of fright, not of the arsenic. He said his antidote was "simplicity."

"Simplicity or duplicity," Raidler countered, "you interfered with the ways of Divine Providence, Bill, when you saved Coffin's life. Now come through and give the archduke a helping hand. Put a little fertilizer on this unirrigated thatch of mine."

So Porter came over one day, looking very important and complacent. One short, fat hand was stuck in his vest and in the other he carried a glove. Porter was an unmitigated dandy, even in the prison. He liked rich, well-fitting clothes. He abhorred noisy styles or colors. I never saw him when he was not well groomed and neat in his appearance.

"Adonis Raidler," Porter ceremoniously laid the glove on the desk and drew forth a bulky, odorous package, "behold the peerless hair-regenerator compounded after tireless, scientific research by one unredeemed Bill Porter."

Raidler grabbed the bottle and pulled out the cork. The heavy pungence of wintergreen filled the office.

"The scent is in harmony with your esthetic soul, Billy," Porter said. "Elusive fragrance might not reach that olfactory nerve of yours."

Billy doused some of the liquid on his head and beban to rub it viciously in. He had the most child-like faith in Porter's genius as a chemist. Every night after that I went to sleep fairly drugged by the cloud of wintergreen under which Billy submerged himself.

Every morning he would bring over the comb to show me that fewer hairs had come out than the day before. Whatever Billy wanted his hair for, none of us could understand. The hair-restorer was nothing but bum bay rum outraged by an overdose of winter-green fragrance. Either Porter's patent, Billy's massaging or his faith stopped the emigration of his hair.

"Now that your locks, thanks to my scientific skill, promise to grow as long as a musician's," Porter boasted, "why not get a fife, Billy, and learn to play it? The colonel here will teach you. And then the three of us will set forth from this fortress of mighty stone and like troubadours of old we will go a-minstreling from village to village."

Porter had a guitar and he picked it with graceful touch. I played the tuba. If Billy could only play the fife, what a joyous troupe we would make!

The idea tickled Porter. He was really in earnest about it. I think his ideal of existence was just such a free vagabondage. Many and many a time in the post-office he had brought up the subject.

"Will you get that fife, Billy?" he said one night. "I have a plan. We will go over and serenade Miles Ogle. If he likes the tufted tinkle of our mellow madness, why forth let us stride to woo the belle demoiselles of all Beautydom!"

Miles Ogle was the greatest counterfeiter in the United States. He was serving a long sentence at the Ohio "pen."

"Would it not be kind to trill forth a gladsome melody to Miles ?" Porter's low, whispering voice lent an air of mystery to his lightest comment. I always felt like a conspirator when his hushed tones kept us captive. "Miles, you know, has a wholesome appreciation of the golden note!"

Porter often spoke to me in these later prison days of his serenading in Austin. He said that he belonged to a troupe of singers. "We went about playing and serenading at the windows of all the fair maids in Austin!" Playing, singing, writing a sonnet, sketching a cartoon—what a lovable ne'er-do-well he would have been if this very breezy negligence had not caught him in a net of unfortunate circumstances at the bank.

"I can think of nothing more delightful," he said, "than to strap a harp to my back and saunter from castle to castle living in the gracious beauty of poetry and music.

"We have the dungeon here, but we lack both the drawbridge and the castle. How sweet it would be to sit in the silver moonlight, to summon the fairies from their leafy pavilions with the strains of our warblings! And then to lie back on the grass and weave fantastic dreams to lighten the drab heart of the world!"

Porter was feeling very gay this night. A hope he had silently cherished. As always he came over to share his happiness. He had won an honor craved by every convict in the "stir."

There was a light tap at the post-office door. Billy opened it and took something from the prisoner standing there and softly closed the door. He handed a card to me. In his own handwriting was Bill Porter's name and underneath a drawing of the steward's office.

"Who brought the card?" I asked.

"Bill; he's out there. Shall I let him in?" Raidler was in a whimsical mood. The light tap was repeated. I answered it.

"Gentlemen, why be so exclusive?" Porter walked in with a very pompous air, his shoulders thrown back in an exaggerated swagger. "Permit me to inform you that I have changed my residence. The card will enlighten you as to my present domicile. I moved to-day."

There was a new enthusiasm in his bantering voice. Porter had been appointed secretary to the steward. The position, with the single exception of the secretaryship to the warden, was the best in the pen. It took him beyond the walls. The steward's office was directly across the street from the pen, the edge of the building skirting the river.

"Colonel, you would envy me---" the voice was a low chuckle.

"I have a desk near the window a big desk with pigeon-holes. I have all the books I want. I can read and think without interruption. Now I can do something."

Seldom had Porter alluded to his ambition to write. We sent out some of his stories, but he let us think they were done just for diversion. The new position gave him plenty of opportunity to try out his talents. He spent every spare moment "practicing," as he used to put it.

We talked about literature and its purposes very often now, for I was even freer than Bill. I had been made secretary to Warden Darby. I had even managed to worm myself out of convict clothes. When I went into Darby's office I was brought into contact with all the distinguished visitors of the State and Nation.

"I look pretty shabby," I hinted to Darby. "I ought to be more up to my position." He turned to me.

"Sure," he said; "go over to the State shop and get the best suit of clothes you can order."

He meant the best suit of convict clothes. I picked out a fine piece of serge and ordered as clever a suit as the Governor might have worn. When Darby saw me without the stripes, he gasped.

"Pretty slick," was the only comment he made. I never wore the stripes again.

Nearly every night Porter would come across the street to visit Billy and me. We would talk by the hour, filling him up on the exploits of bandit days, spinning out the yarns in choice outlaw lingo. He listened captive. The stories seemed to suggest ideas to him. He never used anything just as it was told to him.

"You ought to startle the world," he said to me one day.

"How, by shooting it up?"

"No, colonel, but you have a wonderful lot of stories. You can view life from a thousand viewpoints."

I often wondered at Porter's methods. It seemed to me that he overlooked innumerable stories by his aloofness. He did not seem to have the slightest de- sire to ferret out the secrets of the men in the pen. The convict as a subject for his stories did not appeal to him.

I am convinced that he felt himself different from the average criminal. It was not until he returned to the world and suffered from its coldness that his sympathies were broadened and his prejudices mellowed.

One very odd experience revealed this trait in Porter. I used to play in the prison band every Sunday at chapel. One morning a song thrilled out from the the women's loft.

It was the most magnificent contralto voice I have ever heard. It had a purple depth and intensity of feeling in its tones and at times there was a mournful, piercing pathos in it that struck into the soul like a heartbroken wail.

I looked up, trying to trace the voice to its owner. And finally it seemed to me that a tall, proud-looking girl—a Southerner of exceeding beauty was the singer. Her skin was moon white in its purity, she had splendid gray eyes and hair that fell in a golden radiance about her face. I became greatly interested.

"There's a girl in the pen, Bill," I told Porter, "and you want to come to chapel next Sunday and hear her sing."

"Colonel, I fear you jest. I wouldn't go into the chapel to hear the seven choirs of angels let alone a wretched feminine convict!"

Mrs. Mattie Brown was matron of the women's ward. I was sent over on business. I took the chance to satisfy my curiosity.

"Who is the prima donna that sings on Sundays?" I asked.

"Would you like to see her?" the matron said, looking at me with quiet interest. "You might be able to put in a good word for her and maybe get her a padon. She's a good girl." Mrs. Brown was always trying to help the women convicts. Her understanding was as warm as the sun and as deep as the sea.

"It's a terrible thing to get it the way she did," the matron said. ' 'She's in on a charge of murder. She got life for it."

The girl came down. She was very slender and the cheap, calico polka-dot dress was out of tone with her rich beauty. She looked like a young queen, whose rags could not conceal her distinction.

As soon as she stood before me I was embarrassed. I did not like to ask her questions, but for once in my life curiosity obsessed me. I told her so.

"Your singing attracted me," I said. "I listen for it every Sunday."

A bitter shadow went like an ugly blot across her face and the girl looked up, her clear eyes marred by their look of self-abasement.

"Sing? Oh, yes; I can sing," the voice that was like amber honey mocked. "I sang myself into hell. I don't mind telling you. It isn't often that anyone is interested enough to listen. My people haven't come near me. They think I disgraced them. Maybe so, I don't care. I haven't seen a soul from the out- side in four years. One good thing about prisons, though, you don't live very long in them."

The cynical despondency of this girl, who was not more than 25, robbed me of composure. I couldn't think of a thing to say to her. She was high bred and nervous.

"Isn't it terrible to be scoffed at and have your friends put their hands over their mouths and whisper 'Murderess' when you pass? Oh—I know—a shudder caught her. "That's what happened to me!" her lips suddenly trembled and her chin shook pitifully. She turned and rushed sobbing down the corridor.

As the girl's rough calico whisked around the corner, the matron shook her head.

"I made a mistake, I shouldn't have brought her down. I didn't think it would affect her so. Now she'll be melancholy for a week. Isn't she a pitiful figure! I wish I could do something for herl"

"Was she guilty?"

"Its pretty hard to say. A man about killed Sally's baby. The man was the baby's father. Sally turned around and shot him through the heart. She's glad about it. I mean she's glad about the killing.

"It was shameful the way her mother and her sisters went back on her. She sat in the court all alone and not a soul was with her when she was condemned. They took her off to the pen as though she were a gutter snipe.

"And Sally had supported that mother and sisters. It was her singing that kept them from starvation."

Sally Castleton was sent up from Hamilton county (Cincinnati) for life. The war had robbed her people of their wealth, but not of their pride. It was more in keeping with their type of dignity to starve than to send their daughters to work.

Sally had a gift in her voice. She sang in the choir of a Cincinnati cathedral. The family managed to exist on what she earned.

The son of a banker in Cincinnati began to attend the services. It was the old tale. He saw Sally. They were both young. The girl was attractive far beyond the measure of average loveliness. They loved.

There were picnics in the suburbs. The banker's son came down to be with Sally. There were rides in a four-in-hand. Old women would run to the windows to catch a glimpse of the handsome banker and the town's beauty. It would be a fine match and an honor to the community.

After a while the banker's son came less and less to Hamilton county. And one night Sally ran away and didn't return.

She went to Cincinnati and got a job in a laundry. She saved up every penny. She never asked aid of anyone.

The matron told me half the story. Sally finished it one day a week later when I met her in the matron's office.

"Why didn't I go to him? Oh—I knew---" Sally clasped her hands. They were delicate as white flowers. "I knew," she went on, after a wistful pause, "he wouldn't want to be bothered. I didn't want to hear him tell me to go away."

"You see, well, as long as I didn't absolutely know what he would say, I could comfort myself imagining that he was thinking of me and wondering what had become of me. I used to lie awake at night. I was too tired to sleep.

"I would see him rushing about the city looking for me. Then he would find me and tell me not to worry—it would be all right. It was easy to console myself.

"But I knew I was fooling myself. I knew he would have turned his back on me. He just changed all at once when he knew. He looked at me with a glance of such disgust and hatred I felt as if a cold frost spread over me. He grabbed up his hat and ran down the walk. Then he turned and came back, and tried to be kind.

" 'Sally, I'll look out for you, I'll come again next Sunday,' " he said. I believed him and I waited and waited. I made up excuses for him. But at last I knew that he was never going to come. I couldn't stand the way my mother and sisters looked at me. One night I tied up a few things in a bundle and sneaked out the kitchen door after they were all in bed."

Sally had saved up enough for her expenses. When the baby was a few weeks old she went back to work in the laundry. The old woman where she roomed looked after the little thing. But when it was five or six months old it got sick and Sally had to quit and take care of it.

It was all right as long as the little money lasted. Sally's funds were very small. She gave up eating and spent the money for medicine for the baby. It didn't get any better. She couldn't afford a doctor. She was beside herself with misery.

"If you knew how it looked!" Sally pressed her hands together, her eyes filled with tears. "It had such a dear little white face and the biggest blue eyes. It would turn its head and its poor little mouth would struggle as if it wanted to cry, but was too feeble. It broke my heart to watch it.

"I just got frantic. I used to hold it in my arms, its face pressed against my throat and sometimes I could scarcely feel its breath. I would run up and down the room. I was afraid to look at it for fear it was dying on me.

"Oh, God, you don't know how terrible it is to see the only thing you have in the world just getting weaker and weaker and nothing done to help it. I never slept—I got so I just prayed and prayed to keep it with me.

"And one day it took a spasm. I thought it was gone. I didn't care what I did. I would have crawled in the dust to save it.

"I went to the bank. I waited outside for him. He came down the steps. I followed, waiting until no one was near. Then I edged quietly up to him. 'Phil/ I said.

"He stiffened up as though an electric shock had gone through him. He turned to me in angry contempt, 'What are you dogging me for?'

"It was all I could do to keep from crying. He hurried off and I went stumbling after him. I caught him by the sleeve.

" 'Phil, the baby is dying. I haven't a cent. Oh, I wouldn't let you do anything for it if I could only keep it alive myself. I haven't eaten anything but tea and bread for weeks. And now my last nickel is gone. Phil, will you pay for a doctor for it? It's yours, Phil, your very own. It's the image of you. It has your eyes.'

"For a minute it seemed to me that a look of exultation went across his face. But maybe I imagined it, for he caught my fingers and knocked them off his arm as though I were a leper.

"It does, does it? Well, if it's dying, let it die. I can't keep it alive. Is it my fault if it wants to die?"

"No, no, it's not your fault. But will you help? Will you pay for the doctor—will you help me to take care of it?"

' 'Say, beat it and be damn' quick about it,' he answered. I couldn't believe it. I kept on talking and walking at his side. I don't know what I said. We passed a policeman. He stopped. 'Officer/ he said, 'arrest this rag-picker, will you?"

They arrested Sally and took her to the Cincinnati jail. The man had sworn to a warrant charging her with attempted blackmail. The days passed. The case was not called.

Every day was an agony for Sally. The thought of the dying baby was like a hot coal on the girl's mind. She went to the matron about it. The matron went out to see the baby. When she returned she told Sally she had taken it to a hospital.

The Salvation Army used to visit the jail and get the prisoners to sing hymns. Sally joined in the chorus. A male prisoner heard her. He went out the next day for the Ohio pen to spend the rest of his life there. But he left a present for Sally with the desk sergeant. "Give these two bucks to the girl with the voice, will you?" he said. "Her singing did a lot for me."

Sally was finally called before the night court. The man did not appear. She was dismissed with a reprimand. As she passed the desk sergeant he handed her the two dollars. The gift finished the wreck of Sally's broken life.

She was in such a hurry to get out she ran down the halls, the matron rushing along at her side. "It's too bad, honey, they brought you in here. You didn't deserve it. I'm awful sorry for you." As Sally got to the door, she touched her elbow.

"Honey, I hate to tell you—the poor little baby is dead!"

It was like a ruffian blow struck across the face of a little child. It stunned Sally left her limp and quivering. The baby was dead---.

With a feeble, tormented sob, she put her hands over her head and began to run as though men and women were chasing her, pelting her with stones.

"Listen, honey," the matron caught up with her. "You can stay here. It won't do you no good to get out. The baby died three days ago. Stay here for a while."

"Oh, God, no. Let me get out."

The door opened and the half-demented creature ran out, one thought uppermost. She would go down to the river. The blasting wind tore the clothes almost off her back. The chill went to the marrow.

A light flared out from a shop window, the girl dallied a moment in its warmth. Old jewelry, emblems, silver plate glinted in the show case. In one corner were three revolvers. Sally looked at them fascinated. A cold fury of revenge swept over her.

Up to that moment the anguish of loss ate at her—she had seen only the suffering baby face. Now she saw the man and the lashing contempt on his handsome features. She went in and bought one of the pistols.

As soon as she had it in her hands, it seemed pulling her down like a coffin weight. She dropped it in her blouse and went out, scooting down one street and up another, so cold, so frenzied, so impatient for the morning to come she did not even known that she was crying and calling out in her misery until a drunken old woman stopped her.

The bedraggled old creature took hold of her and Sally let herself be jostled along to the dark, wretched hole where the woman lived. She lit a charcoal stove, and in its feeble glow Sally tried to warm herself.

The damp hole was alive with baleful shadows. Across the bare walls evil figures passed. Now it was the man as he stood rigid and beckoned to the police now the hulking officer lurching forward, grabbing her by the shoulders. And again it was the mother and sisters, hunting the girl down with their scornful looks.

Only once did Sally see the baby. It seemed to be lying on the floor, its mouth writhing, its little hands opening and closing. The father walked up to it and brought his boot down on the plaintive little face, crushing the scalp and mangling the tender flesh.

"God, God, save I" Sally called out as the nightmare passed.

At last it was morning. Sally had to wait until noon. Not for one moment had her resolution faltered. She went straight to the bank and stood behind a column waiting for the man. It seemed that every one in the building rushed out at the stroke of 12—every one but Philip Austin.

Sally began to tremble. She put her hand to her pocket. The pistol was there. "Send him out quick, quick," she chattered in an insane prayer. "Send him out before I lose courage."

Down the street came a policeman. Sally cowered behind the stone pillar. The officer eyed her, walked a few paces, looked back and went on.

"Nobody here now, nobody here," Sally muttered to herself. "Send him out now."

A big form strode down the corridor and the next second Philip Austin swung through the door. Proud and magnificent, he walked like a prince. He walked as he did that joyous day when he swept his hat down in a lordly salute as Sally came down the cathedral steps. He had the same kingly smile on his lips.

Sally's nerve went loose as a taut string when one end is suddenly released. She ran up to him pitiful, distracted, beside herself with misery.

"Phil oh, Phil, the baby died! You put me in jail and it died. It died without any one near it. It died because you wouldn't take care of it."

Not knowing what she was doing or saying in her beating grief, Sally flung herself into Austin's arms.

"The baby died it's dead, dead. Oh, Phil, the baby is dead!"

With one swift, angry wrench the man caught her violently by the wrists.

" -----------you, you little hag what do I care about your brat! Let it die. Now go and don't hang around slopping tears at me. Let the brat die!"

Cold, scornful contempt scowling his features, Austin went to shove Sally from him. There was a little gasp, a tussle, a scream of hurt, sobbing agony, and the double-action revolver was jammed against the man's stomach.

"You don't care? Oh, God!" The trigger snapped.

"He looked me straight in the eye. He looked startled and frightened. He knew I did it. I saw it in his eye. He looked at me for just a moment and then he went down in a slump as though his backbone had suddenly melted."

From everywhere men and women darted into the street. They leaned over the prostrate form. And when they saw that the banker's son was dead, they turned on Sally with their fists and one giant tore her cheek open with a vicious blow.

"But he knew I did it. I saw that in his last glance!" Sally's face was daubed with tears, but there was a triumphant smile in her eye at the memory of Austin's death. "That's satisfaction enough for me. I'm content to spend my days here."

The girl's trial had taken just one day. The jury found her guilty. She was nineteen. That fact saved her from the death penalty.

Sally was a Southerner, with all the hot, proud vengeance of Kentucky in her veins. Her story moved me more than all the horrors I had felt in prison. I could understand the murderous fury that swept over her when the fellow turned her down. I went to the warden's office and blurted the whole story out to him.

"When I hear things like this, I want to leave the damn' hell." Darby did resign eventually because he could not endure the job of electrocuting the condemned. "But some one's got to be here. I hope I do the service well."

Darby said he would try for a pardon. It would have been granted on his recommendation, but the family of the dead man heard about it. They weren't satisfied with the mischief their blackguard son had already done. They went to work and villified Sally until there wasn't a scrap of flesh left on her bones.

The pardon was denied.

Every time I heard that voice with its cascade of golden notes rippling down from the convict women's loft in the chapel it sent daggers through me.

This was a tale, it seemed to me, worthy of the genius of Bill Porter. I told it to him the next afternoon. He listened rather indifferently and when I was finished, he turned to Billy Raidler, "I've brought you a box of cigars."

I was furious at his unmoved coldness. I turned my back on him in angry humiliation. I wanted Porter to write a story about Sally—to make the world ring with indignation over the wrong that had been done. And the story did not seem to make the slightest impression on him. At that time my taste ran entirely to the melodrama. I could not understand Porter's saner discrimination.

He had distinct theories as to the purpose of the short story. We often discussed it. Now it seemed to me that he was deliberately refusing to carry out his ideas.

"The short story," he used to say, "is a potent medium of education. It should combine humor and pathos. It should break down prejudice with understanding. I propose to send the down-and-outers into the drawing-rooms of the 'get-it-alls,' and I intend to insure their welcome. All that the world needs is a little more sympathy. I'm going to make the American Four Hundred step into the shoes of the Four Million."

Porter said this long before any of the stories that make up "The Four Million" had been written.

"Don't you think Sally's story has the real heart throb in it?"

"Colonel, the pulse beats too loud," Porter yawned. "It's very commonplace."

"And so is all life commonplace," I fired back. "That's just what genius is for—you're supposed to take the mean and the ordinary and tell it in a vital way—in a way that makes the old drab flesh of us glow with a new light."

I also was writing a story in those days and I had my own methods and theories. They usually dried out when I tried to run them into the ink well and onto the paper.

There was no use in trying to coax Porter into conversation when he was not in the mood. If a thing didn't catch his interest at once, it never did. There were no trials over with him. The slightest detail would sometimes absorb him and seem to fill him with inspiration. And again, a drama would pass before him and he would let it go unmarked. I knew this. I had seen him coolly ignore Louisa and old man Carnot often enough. But I was just goaded into persistence.

"Sally has a face like Diana," I said.

"When did you meet the goddess, colonel?" Porter jested, all at once absorbed in flicking a bit of dust from his sleeve. "Convict wool is shoddy enough, let alone a convict bundle of muslin."

A few years later. I saw this very same man go into all the honkatonks of New York and no woman was too low to win courtesy from Bill Porter. I have seen him treat the veriest old hag with the chivalry due a queen.

His indifference to Sally's plight was singular. If he had seen her and talked to her I know it would have gripped him to the heart.

Porter saw that I was bitterly wounded and in the petting kind of a way he had he came over to win me back.

" Colonel, please don't be angry with me." You misunderstand me. I wasn't thinking much of Sally tonight. My mind was far away," he laughed. "It was down in Mexico, perhaps, where that indolent, luxurious valley of yours is and where we might have been happy."

"Colonel," Porter's face lighted with humorous eagerness, "do you think we stand any chance to collect that $7,000 you paid down on it? I'm a little in need of funds."

Not many could resist the winning magnetism of Bill Porter if he chose to make himself agreeable. As soon as he had spoken I knew that some secret grief was tugging at him. Porter had labored hard over some story—Billy Raidler had sent it out in the usual way for him. It had come back. He jested about it.

"The average editor," he said, "never knows a firecracker until he hears the bang of its explosion. Those fellows can't tell a story until some one else takes the risk of setting it off."

"They're a damn' bunch of ignoramuses!" Porter had read the story to Billy and me and we had sent it off with singing hearts. We werfe sure the world must acknowledge Porter, even as we did.

"All I'm sorry for is the loss of the stamps, Billy was forced to steal from the State to mail it with. It may damage the reputation of the State board of the Ohio penitentiary," Porter replied, but he was really disappointed. The rejection of his manuscripts did not dull the edge of his self-confidence, but filled him with forebodings as to his future.

"I should not like to be a beggar, colonel," he often said, "and my pen is the only investment I can make. I am continually paying assessments on it. I would like to collect a few dividends."

That same story paid its dividends later. Porter revamped it here and there and it made a big hit for him.

"I'll tell you why I'm not interested in Sally," he swung back to the subject with a suddenness that startled me. "She's better off here than she ever could be outside. I know this place is doom—but what chance has a girl with Sally's past in the world? What are you thinking of, colonel, when you plan to send the girl out there to be trampled in the gutter?"

Sally said almost the same words to me when I tried to get her a pardon after I was freed. I went back to the pen to see her.

"Oh, Mr. Jennings!" Her face had grown thin and its transparent whiteness made her seem a thing of unearthly spirituality. "Don't bother about me. I'm lost. You know it. Do you think they would ever let me crawl back? You know I'm a bad woman."

"I had a baby that I didn't have any right to—do you think the world ever forgives such a crime as that? Leave me alone here. I'm finished. There's no pardon on earth for me."