"An author!" I said. "You an author, Major Shrike!"
To my surprise, he snapped round upon me with something like a glare of fury on his face. This the more startled me as I believed I had reason to regard him as a man whose principles of conduct had long disciplined a temper that was naturally hasty enough.
Before I could speak to explain, he had come hurriedly across the room and had rudely snatched the paper out of my hand.
"How did this get—" he began; then in a moment came to himself, and apologized for his ill manners.
"I thought every scrap of the stuff had been destroyed", he said, and tore the page into fragments. "It is an ancient effusion, doctor—perhaps the greatest folly of my life; but it's something of a sore subject with me, and I shall be obliged if you'll not refer to it again."
He courted my forgiveness so frankly that the matter passed without embarrassment; and we had our game and spent a genial evening together. But memory of the queer little scene stuck in my mind, and I could not forbear pondering it fitfully.
Surely here was a new side-light that played upon my friend and superior a little fantastically.
* * * * *
Conscious of a certain vague wonder in my mind, I was traversing the prison, lost in thought, after my sociable evening with the Governor, when the fact that dim light was issuing from the open door of cell number 49 brought me to myself and to a pause in the corridor outside.
Then I saw that something was wrong with the cell's inmate, and that my services were required.