Presently the guard came back to the grating and asked Jim what he wanted for breakfast.
“It ain’t breakfast time yet, is it?” Jim gasped.
“No, but I’m going to the office after a while and I want to give the order when I go. You’d better tell me now. You can have ‘most anything you want. You can have ham and eggs, or bacon or steak, and tea or coffee, and bread and butter and cakes; or all of ‘em—or anything else you want.”
“Well, I guess you’d better bring me ham and eggs. I don’t seem to care for steak, and I don’t think I want any coffee. I’d rather have a cocktail. You’d better bring me plenty more whiskey too when you come. You know I hain’t slept any and I’m kind of nervous. I guess it’ll be better if I don’t know much about it; don’t you?”
“Sure thing,” the guard answered back. “We’ve got some Scotch whiskey over there that’s all right. I’ll bring you some of that. All the boys takes that. I don’t think you’ll be troubled much after a good drink of that Scotch. I guess you’d better hurry up a little bit with what you want to say. I don’t like to hurry you any, but I’m afraid they’ll be along with the breakfast after while, and they don’t allow any visitors after that.”
The guard turned to leave, but before he had gone far, Jim called out, “You’d better telephone over to the telegraph office, hadn’t you? Somethin’ might have come maybe.”
“All right, I’ll do that,” the guard answered back, “and Jim, I guess you might as well put on them new clothes before breakfast; they’ll look better’n the old ones—to eat in.”
X
Jim drank the remnant of whiskey in the bottle he was holding, draining it to the last drop. As he sat in his chair he leaned against the side of the cell.