The keeper eyed the querist with no very amiable expression, "You'll stay here," said he, "until you take the Oath, I reckon."
"In that case, my native land, good night," responded the interesting captive, Byronically; "my incarceration will terminate with an epitaph—'Hic Jacet Robert Peters. A victim of miss-placed confidence.
He died young'—Jailor, you are affected. Accept a quarter!"
The Cerberus clutched the proffered coin and eyed it with feverish intensity. It was evidently the first quarter he had seen since the commencement of his services in that hole. The man's better nature was touched. "Hist!" he said, drawing Mr. Peters aside and speaking in a whisper: "I can no longer conceal the truth. I am a Southern Union man."
It is a beautiful peculiarity of our common nature, mon ami, that crime never sinks so deeply nor perversion spreads so obstinately in the human soul, but there is still a deeper current of normal rectitude responsive to the force of currency. That this was known to the ancients, is evinced by the antique custom of placing coins on the eyes of the dead, thereby signifying to all concerned that, whatever faults might have perished with the deceased, de mortuis nil nisi bonum.
"Can't I have a room to myself?" asked Bob, after a short pause.
"Follow me," was the response; and he followed the keeper through a crowd of curious prisoners, up a stair-way against a wall, to a room on the next floor. The keeper opened the door with a key from one of his pockets, and led the way into an apartment whose only furniture was a bed, a ricketty chair and a bit of looking-glass on a shelf.
"I sleep here sometimes myself," said the keeper; "but you shall stay here for a small rent. Make yourself comfortable."
"Stop a minute," said Bob, as the man turned to leave. "Do you know how I came to be arrested?"