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“No,” said Dorgan, with a gravity which forbade trifling, “I’m a— I’m a kind of a watchman. Say, what’s this I hear, young Magenta is out of the pen?”

“Yes, the young whelp. I always said he was no good, when he used to work here, and—”

“What’s become of him?”

“He had the nerve to come here when he got out, looking for a job; suppose he wanted the chanct to smash up a few of my machines too! I hear he’s got a job wiping, at the K. N. roundhouse. Pretty rough joint, but good enough for the likes o’ him. Say, Don, things is slow since you went, what with these dirty agitators campaigning for prohibition—”

“Well,” said Dorgan, “I must be moseying along, John. ”

Three men of hurried manner and rough natures threw Dorgan out of three various entrances to the roundhouse, but he sneaked in on the tender of a locomotive and saw Polo Magenta at work, wiping brass— or a wraith of Polo Magenta. He was thin, his eyes large and passionate. He took one look at Dorgan, and leaped to meet him.

“Dad—thunder—you old son of a gun. ”

“Sure! Well, boy, how’s it coming?”

“Rotten. ”

“Well?”

“Oh, the old stuff. Keepin’ the wanderin’ boy tonight wa
nderin’. The warden gives me good advice, and I thinks I’ve paid for bein’ a fool kid, and I pikes back to Little Hell with two bucks and lots of good intentions and—they seen me coming. The crooks was the only ones that welcomed me. McManus offered me a job, plain and fancy driving for guns. I turned it down and looks for decent work, which it didn’t look for me none. There’s a new cop on your old beat. Helpin’ Hand Henry, he is. He gets me up and tells me the surprisin’ news that I’m a desprit young jailbird, and he’s onto me—see; and if I chokes any old women or beats up any babes in arms, he’ll be there with the nippers—see: so I better quit my career of murder.

“I gets a job over in Milldale, driving a motor-truck, and he tips ’em off I’m a forger and an arson and I dunno what all, and they lets me out—wit’ some more good advice. Same wit’ other jobs. ”

“Effie?”

“Ain’t seen her yet. But say, Dad, I got a letter from her that’s the real stuff—says she’ll stick by me till her dad croaks, and then come to me if it’s through fire. I got it here—it keeps me from going nutty. And a picture postcard of her. You see, I planned to nip in and see her before her old man knew I was out of the hoosegow, but this cop I was tellin’ you about wises up Kugler, and he sits on the doorstep with the Revolutionary musket loaded up with horseshoes and cobblestones, and so—get me? But I gets a letter through to her by one of the boys. ”

“Well, what are you going to do?”

“Search me…. There ain’t nobody to put us guys next, since you got off the beat, Dad. ”

“I ain’t off it! Will you do what I tell you to?”

“Sure. ”

“Then listen: You got to start in right here in Northernapolis, like you’re doing, and build up again. They didn’t sentence you to three years but to six—three of ’em here, getting folks to trust you again. It ain’t fair, but it is. See? You lasted there because the bars kep’ you in. Are you man enough to make your own bars, and to not have ’em wished onto you?”

“Maybe. ”

“You are! You know how it is in the pen—you can’t pick and choose your cell or your work. Then listen: I’m middlin’ well off, for a bull—savin’s and pension. We’ll go partners in a fine little garage, and buck John McManus—he’s a crook, and we’ll run him out of business. But you got to be prepared to wait, and that’s the hardest thing a man can do. Will you?”