“Shut up, you, Red,” the sergeant snarled at him.
“Forget it,” was the retort.
“I’ll get you yet, Red,” the sergeant threatened.
“Think so?” Philadelphia Red queried sweetly, ere his tones turned to savageness. “Why, you old stiff, you couldn’t get nothin’. You couldn’t get a free lunch, much less the job you’ve got now, if it wasn’t for your brother’s pull. An’ I guess we all ain’t mistaken on the stink of the place where your brother’s pull comes from.”
It was admirable—the spirit of man rising above its extremity, fearless of the hurt any brute of the system could inflict.
“Well, so long, brother,” Philadelphia Red next called to me. “So long. Be good, an’ love the Warden. An’ if you see ’em, just tell ’em that you saw me but that you didn’t see me saw.”
The sergeant was red with rage, and, by the receipt of various kicks and blows, I paid for Red’s pleasantry.
CHAPTER VIII.
In solitary, in Cell One, Warden Atherton and Captain Jamie proceeded to put me to the inquisition. As Warden Atherton said to me:
“Standing, you’re going to come across with that dynamite, or I’ll kill you in the jacket. Harder cases than you have come across before I got done with them. You’ve got your choice—dynamite or curtains.”