A few weeks later, Marriott saw Archie at the penitentiary. He had gone to the state capital to argue to the Supreme Court old man Koerner's case against the railroad company. Several weeks before he had tried the case in the Appellate Court, and had won, the court affirming the judgment. This case seemed now to be the only hope of the family, and Marriott was anxious to have it heard by the Supreme Court before the learned justices knew of Archie's case, lest the relation of the old man and the boy prejudice them. He felt somehow that if he failed in Archie's case, a victory in the father's case would go far to dress the balance of the scales of justice and preserve the equilibrium of things. It was noon when Marriott was at the penitentiary, and he was glad that the men who were waiting to be killed were then taking their exercise, for he was spared the depression of the death-chamber. He met Archie under the blackened locust tree in the quadrangle. Archie was hopeful that day.
"I feel lucky," said Archie. "I'll not have to punish,--think so, Mr. Marriott?"
"We've got lots of time," Marriott replied, not knowing what else to say, "the Supreme Court doesn't sit till fall."
Pritchard, the poisoner, laid his slender white hand on Archie's shoulder.
"Good boy you've got here, Mr. Marriott," he said jokingly, "but a trifle wild."
Marriott laughed, and wondered how he could laugh.
Just then a whistle blew, and the convicts in close-formed ranks filed by on their way to dinner. As they went by, one of them glanced at him with a smile of recognition; a smile which, as Marriott saw, the man at once repressed, as the convict is compelled to repress all signs of human feeling. Marriott stared, then suddenly remembered; it was a man named Brill, whom he had known years before. And he, like the rest of the world, had forgotten Brill! He had not even cast him a glance of sympathy! He felt like running after the company--but it was too late; Brill must go without the one little kindness that might have made one day, at least, happier, or if not that, shorter for him.
The last gray-garbed company marched by, the guard with his club at his shoulder. The rear of this company was brought up by a convict, plainly of the fourth grade, for he was in stripes and his head was shaved. He walked painfully, with the aid of a crooked cane, lifting one foot after the other, flinging it before him and then slapping it down uncertainly with a disagreeable sound to the pavement.
"What's the matter with that man?" asked Marriott.
"They say he has locomotor ataxia," said Beck, the death-watch, "but he's only shamming. He's no good."