"Yes—hit's a drippin' down heah."
"You sure it's blood?"
"Yes," reassured Lem. "Hit's sho' blood—'cause I got some on my han'."
"Wait a minute."
Lem heard him rummaging around in his cell. The convict made a long, rigid roll out of a newspaper and thrusting this out and around at arm's length he said:
"Here, Lutts, get the end of this—stick it in the blood and hand it back."
Lem manipulated the paper. Reaching as far out as he could, he rubbed one end in the dark pool in front of his cell, and handed it back to the convict. Lem heard Last Time exclaim:
"The hell—I thought that guy'd do something."
The next minute the convict was scraping a tin cup across the bars of his door, a performance that sent metallic echoes from end to end of the corridor. A guard responded with surprising alacrity.
"What's the rumpus here, Last Time?" he demanded.