“While in prison you were known as One-Thumbed Jack.” Taken off his guard, the man asked:
“How did you know that?”
“Then you are an ex-convict?”
“Well, yes, sir, but I had honest reasons for not wanting it known and I’d like to speak to you alone, sir.”
Mr. Goff granted the request and they retired to a small room where the prisoner after telling his real name, related a touching story of devotion to a young sister whom he brought up and educated with the proceeds of his earlier crimes. While serving his prison term he had written her letters which his pals posted for him in different parts of the world to make her believe he was traveling so constantly that any letters from her could not reach him. This sister was now married and had two children and it would break her heart to find out that her brother was a convict or had ever been one. So he wished to be sentenced under another name. Mr. Goff said:
“I will suspend sentence.”
Later the man’s statements were investigated and found to be true. So his request to be sentenced under an assumed name was granted. Farther, he got but two years, although he would have been “sent up” for ten years had it not been for his story—a fact which shows how in Recorder Goff, the city’s greatest terror to evil-doers, justice is tempered with mercy.
