Opening the large can, he heated it over his hall fire. Then he dumped the contents on his tin plate and ate.
"Murder," he thought somberly. "That's what I'm in for. Practically murder with consent. She said she couldn't live without me. Margie begged me to kill her, you might as well say. Good old Margie; a good kid, but I killed her. And now.... Well, that's life!" He speared a pancake.
"Damn, but it's cold!" He threw an armload of wood on the fire and it blazed up. "Sure wish these carpenters had feelings. My lord, they got no feelings at all!"
The carpenter arrived with a new hardwood door. Whistling cheerily, he began to install it where the other one had just been hatcheted away.
"Carpenter, that door won't be staying there long. I'm almost out of fuel."
"I hope you don't expect me to be surprised, Jim, if this door doesn't last very long. The previous twenty-two doors at this location, Jim, did not last very long either." Still whistling to himself, he installed the last of the hinge screws.
"Why don't you just give me the doors, instead of causing yourself all this work?" demanded James Ypsilanti.
"'Inmates will not be issued materials,' Jim. I've quoted that section of the rules to you many times, Jim."
"But couldn't you just lean the door up against the door jamb and leave it?" argued the inmate. "You go to a ridiculous amount of trouble."
"It is not ridiculous, Jim. I am a carpenter, Jim. Good-by."