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“I should think you’d be afraid of catching cold in this draughty car with your hair cut so short,” said Mr. Holiday.

“I am,” said the man tersely.

“Why did you let them cut it so short then?”

“Let them!” grunted the man, with ineffable scorn. “Let them! You’d have let them!”

“I would not,” retorted Mr. Holiday crisply. “My wife cuts my hair for me, just the way I tell her to.”

The man turned a careworn, unhappy face.

“My wife used to cut mine,” he said. “But then I–I got into the habit of having it done for me…. Ever been to Ohio Penitentiary, mister? … That’s the finest tonsorial parlor in America–anything from a shave to the electric treatment.”

“Ohio Penitentiary is a jail for felons,” said Mr. Holiday severely.

“Quite so,” said the man, “as I was telling you.”

His voice had a plaintive, subdued note of defiance in it. It was that of a person who is tired of lying and beating about the bush.

“When did you get out?” asked Mr. Holiday simply.

“Eight days ago,” said the man, “and when I get good and sick of looking for jobs and getting turned down–I guess I’ll go back.”

“First they make you work,” said Mr. Holiday with a pleased chuckle, “and then they won’t let you work. That’s the law. But you take my advice–you fool ’em!”

“I never fooled anybody,” said the man, and he ripped a holy name from the depths of his downheartedness.

Mr. Holiday had extracted his note-book, and under cover of the seat-back was preparing to take notes and make comments.

“What did you use to do for a living–before?” he asked.

“I was teller in a bank.”

“And what happened?”

“Then,” said the man, “the missus had twins, followed by typhoid fever.” His admissions came with hopeless frankness. “And I couldn’t pay for all that luxury. So I stole.”

“What bank were you teller in?”

“The Painsville Bank–Painsville. I’m going to them now to–to see if they won’t let up. The wife says that’s the thing to do–go right to the boil of trouble and prick it.”

“What did your wife do while you were away?” asked Mr. Holiday delicately.

“She did odd jobs, and brought the twins up healthy.”

“I remember the Painsville business,” said Mr. Holiday, “because I own stock in that bank. You only took about two hundred dollars.”

“That was all I needed,” said the man. “It saved the missus and the kids–so what’s the odds?”

“But don’t you intend to pay it back?”

“Not if the world won’t let me earn any money. I tried for jobs all to-day, and yesterday, and the day before. I told my story straight. The missus wrote that was the thing to do. But I guess she’s wrong for once. What would you do if you were a banker and I came to you and said: ‘I’m just out of jail, where I went for stealing; but I mean to be honest. Won’t you give me work?'”

Mr. Holiday wondered what he would do. He was beginning to like the ex-convict’s frankness.

“Do you know who I am?” he asked.

“Everybody knows you by sight, Mr. Holiday.”

“Then you know,” said the little old gentleman, “that I’ve sent plenty of people to jail in my time–plenty of them.”

“I’ve heard that said,” said the man.

“But,” said Mr. Holiday sharply, “nobody ever tells stories about the wrongdoers I have forgiven. Your case never came to me. I believe I would have shown mercy.”

He closed his note-book and rose.

“Keep telling your story straight, my man, and asking for work.”

He paused, as if waiting a reply; but the man only grunted, and he passed forward to the children. First he examined the visiting-card effects on the tops of their hats, and noticed that these were paper labels sewed down, and bearing the names and destinations of the little passengers. Freddie, Alice, and Euphemia Caldwell, reading from left to right, were consigned in the care of the conductor to Silas Caldwell, Painsville, Ohio.