Rogers seemed not to hear the praise. "A man may begin to think while he is still a boy; if he has spirit and animal energy, he doesn't begin to think till later. I was twenty-seven. I had been two years in Sing Sing and had three more years to serve. It wasn't the warden's words that started me thinking, nor the chaplain's sermons. Chaplains!—bah!—frocked phonographs! It was two old men I happened to see there—mere cinders of men. The thought shot into me, 'There's what you're going to be at sixty-five!'
"I couldn't get away from that thought. My mind forced me to study my friends; there was not one old man among them who was living a peaceful, comfortable life. That burnt-out, hunted old age—I revolted from it! I did a lot of thinking. I decided that, when I got out, prison gates should never have reason to close on me again.
"Finally, I was discharged. I knew it was hard for an ex-convict to get work, but I thought it would be easy for me. I was willing, clever, adaptable. But—oh, God! you know what the fight is, Aldrich!"
"I do!" said David.
Rogers was on his feet now, his eyes once more glowing. He began to pace the floor excitedly.
"Your fight was easy to mine. But I'll skip it—you know what the fight's like. It's enough to say that I found the world would not receive me as my old self. I changed my name; I grew a beard; I began to wear glasses; I dyed my red hair brown; I smothered down my spirit. I became John Rogers.
"A friend of mine in a Chicago real estate office, in which I once worked for a couple of weeks as a clerk, sent me an envelope and a sheet of paper of the firm. On the paper I wrote a letter of recommendation from the firm. I had told my story to the Mayor of Avenue A—it was because he knew I would sympathise with you that he brought you to me—and he helped me. I got my first job.
"Think of that, Aldrich!" He held a trembling fist in David's face, and laughed harshly. "I had to become a disguise, I had to lie, I had to commit forgery, to get a chance to be honest! Oh, isn't this a sweet world we're living in!
"And ever since, my life has been one great lie! A lie for honesty! But the lie has done for me what truth could not do. I'm respected in a small way. I'm successful in a small way. But, man, how that smallness chafes me! How I am shackled! I should be respected, be successful, in a large way. I'm cleverer than most of the men in my line. I have brains. I see big business opportunities. But I dare not take them. I must always be pulling back at the reins. If I let myself out, I should become prominent. Men would begin to ask, 'Who is that fellow Rogers?' and pretty soon some one would be sure to find out. And down I'd go! I must keep myself so small that I'll not be noticed—that's my only safety!"
He paused. David could say nothing.