After lunch, James Ypsilanti crawled into his escape tunnel.
He liked to go in there every day and daydream. The tunnel ended abortively at the wall of the prison, for the prison wall extended down into solid bed rock for a meter, and it was fabricated of one-meter thick compressed steel. It was the nearest thing to an exit that the prison had.
Officials had always come and gone through the massive, englobing wall by matter transmitters. "Smarties couldn't find me though, when I was in my escape tunnel," he chortled, as he stretched out in the cave under the concrete. "They can walk through walls, but they couldn't find me." Then his tone became baleful. "The smarties'll never find me."
As James Ypsilanti chopped on the door next day, the carpenter stood cheerily watching.
"Carpenter, why don't you fix the damn heating plant? Then I wouldn't have to be chopping up your doors all the time to keep warm."
"I am a carpenter, Jim, not a heat-plant fixer, as you well know from our previous negotiations on the subject."
"What will you do, carpenter, when I have used up all your doors?" the convict jibed.
"Why, Jim, we will have to send out for some more," the carpenter answered condescendingly.
"Still, I wish you would let me work on that heat plant," urged Ypsilanti. "I might fix it."