"If you swallow everything you see in the papers, you must have an awful maw!"
"Yes, I suppose you have got some sort of a story you put up."
Tom glared at his pudgy visitor who questioned with such an exasperating presumption. "Did I ask you here?" he demanded.
The contractor's eyes snapped, and Tom expected hot words. But none came. "Don't get hot under the collar," Mr. Driscoll advised, running his comforting finger under his own. "Come, what's your side of the story?"
Tom was of half a mind to give a curt refusal. But his wrong was too great, too burning, for him to keep silent upon it. He would have talked of it to any one—to his very walls. He took a turn in the cell, then paused before his old employer and hotly explained his innocence and Foley's guilt.
While Tom spoke Mr. Driscoll's head nodded excitedly.
"Just what I said!" he cried when Tom ended, and brought his fist down on his knee. "Well, we'll show him!"
"Show him what?" Tom asked.
Mr. Driscoll stopped his fist midway in another excited descent. He stood up, for he saw the officer's scowling face at the grated front of the cell. "Oh, a lot of things before he dies. As for you, keep your courage up. What else's it for?"
He held out his hand. Tom took it with bewildered perfunctoriness.