Chapter XX
TOM HAS A CALLER
Late in the afternoon, as Tom lay stretched in glowering melancholy on the greasy, dirt-browned board that did service as chair and bed to the transitory tenants of the cell, steps paused in the corridor without and a key rattled in his door. He rose dully out of his dejection. A scowling officer admitted a man, round and short and with side whiskers, and locked the door upon his back.
"This is a pretty how-to-do!" growled the man, coming forward.
Tom stared at his visitor. "Why, Mr. Driscoll!" he cried.
"That's who the most of my friends say I am," the contractor admitted gruffly.
He deposited himself upon the bench that had seated and bedded so much unwashed misfortune, and, his back against the cement wall, turned his sour face about the bare room. "This is what I call a pretty poor sort of hospitality to offer a visitor," he commented, in his surly voice. "Not even a chair to sit on."
"There is also the floor; you may take your choice," Tom returned, nettled by the other's manner. He himself took the bench.
Mr. Driscoll stared at him with blinking eyes, and he stared back defiantly. In Tom's present mood of wrath and depression his temper was tinder waiting another man's spark.