ide the buildin'. I went on in a kind of dream. I worked like two, an'
they begun to take notice of me. The chaplain 'd come an' talk to me,
an' he worked over me well; but he might as well have talked to the
dead. But my very keepin' still made him think he'd half got me, an'
he'd fetch books an' papers; an' things got easier that way. I read an'
studied: I was bound now to know something, an' I worked at that hard as
I did at everything else; an' there come a time when I was recommended
for pardon, an' five years an' a day after I went in he brought it to
me. I couldn't speak: I could have gone on my knees to him, an' he had
sense to know how I felt.

"'Jack,' he said, 'you're very young yet, an' now is your chance. Try to
be an honest man an' pray for help. I wish I knew if you will pray.'

"'You'd make me if any one could,' I says, 'but I ain't sure of the use
of it yet: I wish I was.'

"He just looked at me sorrowful, for I hadn't said even that much
before, an' I went off.

"An' I did mean to keep straight. I'd had enough of prison; but when I
went round askin' for work, not a soul would have me. A
jail-bird!--well, they thought not. I grew mad ag'in, an' yet I wouldn't
take to the river, for, somehow, I'd lost my courage. Then I met an old
pal, an' he took me round to Micky's saloon. The barkeeper'd just been
stuck in a fight. I'd been a profitable one for Micky, an' maybe he
thought, beginnin' there, I'd go back to the river once more. An' there
I was three years, an' fights nigh every night of the year. I could stop
'em when no one else could, for I was always sober.

"'Why don't you drink?' they'd say, an' I'd tell 'em I wanted what
brains I had unfuddled. But I hated it worse an' worse. I'd have stopped
any minute if there'd been one alive to take me by the hand an' say,
'Here's honest work.' I looked at folks when I went out, to see if there
was one that could be spoken to. An' at last I made up my mind for
another try. I'd saved some money an' could live a while, an' one
Saturday night I just left when Micky paid me. 'Get another man,' I
said: 'I'm done;' an' I walked out, with him shoutin' after me.

"Then I waited three months. I answered advertisements, an' I put 'em
in. I went here an' I went there, an' always it was the same story, for
I answered every one square. An' at last I was sick of it all: I had
nothing to live for. 'I'm tired of living with rascals,' I said, 'an'
good folks are too good