“I dare say. Well, to come back to business, the question with you is how to keep these here misfortunes of yours from your mother, ain’t it?”
“Of course.”
“Well, the best plan for you is to plead guilty, showing you don’t mean to give the court any more trouble. Tell the judge you are sick of your life, and going to quit. You are, ain’t you?” the sheriff concluded, simply; and the swindler, after an instant’s hesitation, answered:
“Damned if I won’t, if I can get a job!”
“Well, that admitted”—the sheriff smoothed his big knees gently as he talked, his mild attentive eyes fixed on the prisoner’s nervous presence—“that admitted, best plan is for you to plead guilty, and maybe we can fix it so’s you will be sentenced to jail instead of the pen. Then we can keep it from your mother easy. Write her you’ve got a job here in this town, and have your letters sent to my care. I’ll get you something to do. She’ll never suspect that you are the notorious Ned Paisley. And it ain’t likely you go home often enough to make not going awkward.”
“I haven’t been home in four years. But see here: how long am I likely to get?”
The sheriff looked at him, at the hollow cheeks and sunken eyes and narrow chest—all so cruelly declared in the sunshine; and unconsciously he modulated his voice when he spoke.
“I wouldn’t worry about that, if I was you. You need a rest. You are run down pretty low. You ain’t rugged enough for the life you’ve been leading.”
The prisoner’s eyes strayed past the grating to the green hills and the pleasant gardens, where some children were playing. The sheriff did not move. There was as little sensibility in his impassive mask as in a wooden Indian’s; but behind the trained apathy was a real compassion. He was thinking. “The boy don’t look like he had a year’s life in him. I bet he knows it himself. And when he stares that way out of the window he’s thinking he ain’t never going to be foot-loose in the sun again. Kinder tough, I call it.”
The young man’s eyes suddenly met his. “Well, it’s no great matter, I guess,” said he. “I’ll do it. But I can’t for the life of me make out why you are taking so much trouble.”