“I am not guilty. Pat has been giving you some more reports—and false ones, if he has told you that I was sleeping. I have not felt well, in the last thirty minutes. I felt a dizziness come over me, but I feel all right now.”
“Do you know if you were asleep at any time, or in a faint, while you were feeling dizzy?”
“I was not, sir. I was sitting at this desk, as you see me.”
“And I am being deceived by one in whom I have placed confidence. Pat is a good fellow. I can not believe that he would deceive me. Perhaps, after all, I had better watch him, as well as the other one,” thought the superintendent. “I need help. I have too many to watch. I can not be here and there too, but I will stay by the prisoner until I have satisfied myself that he is right or wrong.”
“Come quick! Help! help! The fellow has turned into a woman and it looks as if there were half a dozen people where he is,” called Pat; “and he spakes like a woman. All he would have to do would be to put on a woman’s clothes and you would let him pass out on her voice, be jabers! She might be cultivating the voice to make her get away, but when they get by Pat they will have to go when I am aslape, for I am not here to let anyone get away without their papers of freedom. You will have to come, as the prisoners are killing time, listening to the lady speaking.”
“Now, office superior,” said Mr. Pearson, “you have so much confidence in Pat, leave him in charge of the office, and I will go with you to see what is wrong with the prisoner—78.”
“I will do that.”
“Pat, take care of this office until we return. Come along, Pearson. Make haste, this way.”
“Well, I felt all along I would be the man to fill this place, and some day this Irishman will be called the ‘supperior officer’ around this prison. I hope they will succeed in finding the lady still talking—or the gentleman, whichever it is.”
“Well, officer, do you see anything wrong? The fellow is working.”