as fortunate or
unlucky. It was usual to have twelve months at the Scrubbs before
testing the life of a convict establishment. He believed there was some
talk of sending him to Parkhurst, and here he traced the influence which
T. X. would exercise, for Parkhurst was a prisoner's paradise.

He heard his warder's voice behind him.

"Right turn, 43, quick march."

He walked ahead of the armed guard, through the great and gloomy gates
of the prison, turned sharply to the right, and walked up the village
street toward the moors, beyond the village of Princetown, and on the
Tavistock Road where were two or three cottages which had been lately
taken by the prison staff; and it was to the decoration of one of these
that A. O. 43 had been sent.

The house was as yet without a tenant.

A paper-hanger under the charge of another warder was waiting for the
arrival of the painter. The two warders exchanged greetings, and the
first went off leaving the other in charge of both men.

For an hour they worked in silence under the eyes of the guard.
Presently the warder went outside, and John Lexman had an opportunity of
examining his fellow sufferer.

He was a man of twenty-four or twenty-five, lithe and alert. By no means
bad looking, he lacked that indefinable suggestion of animalism which
distinguished the majority of the inhabitants at Dartmoor.

They waited until they heard the warder's step clear the passage, and
until his iron-shod boots were tramping over the cobbled path which led
from the door, through the tiny garden to the road, before the second
man spoke.

"What are you in for?" he asked, in a low voice.

"Murder," said John Lexman, laconically.

He had answered the question before, and had noticed with a little
amusement the look of respect which came into the eyes of the
questioner.

"What have you got!"

"Fifteen years," said the other.

"That means 11 years and 9 months," said the first man. "You've never
been here before, I suppose?"

"Hardly," said Lexman, drily.

"I was here when I was a kid," confessed the paper-hanger. "I am going
out next week."

John Lexman looked at him enviously. Had the man told him that he had
inherited a great fortune and a greater title his envy would not have
been so genuine.

Going out!

The drive in the brake to the station, the ride to London in creased,
but comfortable clothing, free as the air, at liberty to go to bed and
rise when he liked, to choose his ow