I smiled
into the faces bent over me.

"Shamming," snorted the Warden, and I knew by the flush on his face and
the thickness in his tongue that he had been drinking.

I licked my lips as a sign for water, for I desired to speak.

"You are an ass," I at last managed to say with cold distinctness. "You
are an ass, a coward, a cur, a pitiful thing so low that spittle would be
wasted on your face. In such matter Jake Oppenheimer is over-generous
with you. As for me, without shame I tell you the only reason I do not
spit upon you is that I cannot demean myself nor so degrade my spittle."

"I've reached the limit of my patience!" he bellowed. "I will kill you,
Standing!"

"You've been drinking," I retorted. "And I would advise you, if you must
say such things, not to take so many of your prison curs into your
confidence. They will snitch on you some day, and you will lose your
job."

But the wine was up and master of him.

"Put another jacket on him," he commanded. "You are a dead man,
Standing. But you'll not die in the jacket. We'll bury you from the
hospital."

This time, over the previous jacket, the second jacket was put on from
behind and laced up in front.

"Lord, Lord, Warden, it is bitter weather," I sneered. "The frost is
sharp. Wherefore I am indeed grateful for your giving me two jackets. I
shall be almost comfortable."

"Tighter!" he urged to Al Hutchins, who was drawing the lacing. "Throw
your feet into the skunk. Break his ribs."

I must admit that Hutchins did his best.

"You _will_ lie about me," the Warden raved, the flush of wine and wrath
flooding ruddier into his face. "Now see what you get for it. Your
number is taken at last, Standing. This is your finish. Do you hear?
This is your finish."

"A favour, Warden," I whispered faintly. Faint I was. Perforce I was
nearly unconscious from the fearful constriction. "Make it a triple
jacketing," I managed to continue, while the cell walls swayed and reeled
about me and while I fought with all my will to hold to my consciousness
that was being squeezed out of me by the jackets. "Another jacket . . .
Warden . . . It . . . will . . . be . . . so . . . much . . . er . . .
warmer."

And my whisper faded away as I ebbed down into the little death.

I was never the same man after that double-jacketing. Never again, to
this day, no matter what my food, was I properly nurtured. I suffered
internal injuries to an extent I neve