they are," said Choate. "Pardon me. There are going to be
robbers and pirates and Napoleons and get-rich-quicks born for quite a
while yet. And they're not going to be born in my class alone--nor
Weedon's."

Weedon squirmed at this, and even Jeff thought it rather a nasty cut.
But Jeff did not know yet how well Choate knew Weedon in the ways of
men. And Weedon accepted no rebuff. He turned to Jeff, distinctly
leaving Choate as one who would have his little pleasantries.

"Jeff," he said, "I want you to do something for the _Argosy_."

Jeff at once knew what.

"Queer," he said, "how you all think I've got copy out of jail."

Anne resented the word. It was not jail, she thought, a federal prison
where gentlemen, when they have done wrong or been, like Jeff, falsely
accused, may go with dignity.

"My dear," said Miss Amabel, in a manner at once all compassion and
inexorable demand, "you've got so much to tell us. You men in
that--place," she stumbled over the word and then accepted
it--"discussed the ideal republic. You made it, by discussing it."

"Yes," said Choate, in voice of curious circumspection as if he hardly
knew what form even of eulogy might hurt, "it was an astonishing piece
of business. You can't expect people not to notice a thing like that."

"I can't help it," said Jeff. "I don't want such a row made over it."

Whether the thing was too intimate, too near his heart still beating
sluggishly it might be, from prison air, could not be seen. But Miss
Amabel, exquisitely compassionate, was yet inexorable, because he had
something to give and must not withhold.

"The wonderful part of it is," she said, "that when you have built up
your ideal government, prison ceases to be prison. There won't be
punishment any more."

"Oh, don't you make that mistake," said Jeff, instantly, moved now too
vitally to keep out of it. "There are going to be punishments all along
the line. The big punishment of all, when you've broken a law, is that
you're outside. If it's a small break, you're not much over the sill. If
it's a big break, you're absolutely out. Outside, Amabel, outside!" He
never used the civil prefix before her name, and Anne wondered again
whether the intimacy of the letters accounted for this sweet
informality. "You're banished. What's worse than that?"

"Oh, but," said she, her plain, beautiful face beaming divinity on him
as one of the children of men, "I don't want them to be banished. If
anybody