refusal turned his disfigured head upon the youthful representative of
an aged paper, he seemed to the thoughtless reporter the incarnation
of a wounded beast. The young fellow opened the door, and beckoned his
mates in to see the new show that was enacting before them. It is only
fair to say that it is due to the modern insanity of the press for
prying into private affairs that the worst phase of the tragedy I am
relating came to pass.

Isaac Masters told his story eagerly and simply.

"I have done nothing to be arrested for," he ended, looking at the
superintendent with his round, honest eyes. "I only did my duty as
anybody else would. Now let me go. Tell me, Mr. Officer, where I can
get a decent night's lodging, for I am going home to-morrow. I've had
enough of this city. I want to go home!"

Something like a sob sounded in the throat of the huge boy as he came
to this pathetic end. Every man in the station, from the most hardened
observer of crime to the youngest reporter of misery, was moved. Isaac
himself, still dizzy from the effects of the blow, nauseated by the
prison smell, the indescribable odor of crime which no disinfectants
can overcome, confounded by the surroundings into which he had been
cast, and trembling with the nameless apprehension that all honest
people feel when drawn into the arms of the law, swayed and swooned
again.

The sergeant and the reporters (for they were not without kind hearts)
busied themselves with bringing him to. From an opposite bench the
murderer lowered, between scowls of pain, upon the man who had crushed
him. There had been revealed to him a simplicity of soul residing in
a body of iron. He saw that the country lad had fainted, not from
physical weakness, but because of mental anguish. Such an apparent
disparity between mind and body had not been brought to the
saloon-keeper's experience before.

"He is the only witness, you say, officer?" inquired the chief. "Are
you sure?"

"Yes, sorr!"

"We'll have to hold him, then. It's a great pity. I don't suppose he
could get a ten-dollar bail." The superintendent shook his gray head
thoughtfully. His subordinates did the same, with an exaggerated air
of distress.

"Where am I? Oh!" What horror in that exhalation, as Isaac realized
the place he was in! He staggered to his feet.

"Give me my bag, quick!" he exclaimed. "I will go."

"I'm afraid you can't go yet." The superintendent spoke as if he hated
to do his duty.