Belden, who worked a machine next to Archie, did that; but only as a last resort.
"It's no use for me to learn this trade," he said to Archie one day when the guard was at the other end of the shop.
"Why not?"
"'Cause I'll be on the street in two months; my mouthpiece's going to take my case to the Supreme Court, and he's sure to have it reversed. All I got to do's to raise a hundred and fifty case; I've written my mother, and she's already saved up seventy-eight. There's nothing to it. Me learn to make these damned bolts for McBride? I guess not!"
Belden talked a great deal about his case in the Supreme Court. Many of the convicts did that. They did everything to raise money for their lawyers. After Belden's attorney had taken the case up, and failed, Belden made application for pardon; and this required more money. His mother was saving up again. But this failed also; then Belden feigned sickness, was sent to the hospital; and they all admired him for his success.
Archie was sick once, and after three sick calls--he was, in reality, utterly miserable and suffered greatly--the physician, who, like every one else in the penitentiary, was controlled by the contractors, gave in and sent him to the hospital. Though the hospital was a filthy place, Archie for two days enjoyed the rest he found there. Then Sweeny told him that the bed he occupied had not been changed since a consumptive had died in it the day before Archie arrived.
"You stick to that pad," said Sweeny, "and the croakers'll be peddling your stiff in a month."
Sweeny was accounted very wise, as indeed he was; for he held his position by reason of his discovery that the doctor was supplying his brother, who kept a drugstore outside, with medicines, silk bandages, plasters and surgical instruments.
Archie recovered then and went back to Bolt B.
After his return things went better for a while, because, to his surprise, the Kid, of whom he had heard in the jail at home, was there working at the machine next to his. The Kid had been transferred to that shop because he had utterly demoralized Bolt A, where he had been working. The little pickpocket, indeed, had been tried on all kinds of work--in the broom factory, in the cigar factory, in the foundry, everywhere, but he could not long be tolerated anywhere. His presence was too diverting. He was taken from the broom shop because he amused himself at the expense of a country boy sent up for grand larceny, whom, as the country boy thought, he was teaching to be a prowler. In the cigar shop he made another unsophisticated boy think that he could teach him the secret of making "cluck," or counterfeit money; and he went so far as to give him a can of soft gray earth, which the convict thought was crude silver, and some broken glass to give the metal the proper ring. The convict hid this rubbish in his cell and jealously guarded it; he was to be released in a month. For a while the warden employed the Kid about the office, but one day he said to one of the trusties, an old life man who had been in the prison twenty years, until his mind had weakened under the confinement: