Before the morning is over George, the trusty, comes along saying: “Shave, Jack?” “Yes.” “Shave, Brown?” “No, thank you.”
So my partner goes under George’s hands for his semiweekly barbering, and in due time reappears, looking his best. If anyone should ask me how good is Jack’s best, I should have to answer that I have not the least idea. By this time I am becoming so attached to my open-hearted, whole-souled partner that I can only look at him with the eyes of affectionate and indiscriminating friendship.
While Jack is getting shaved I work on steadily, chatting with Stuhlmiller, “Blackie,” whose name I find is Laflam, and Jack Bell, who marches second in line on the right, and who has a pleasant voice and seems like an exceptionally intelligent fellow.
We return to the cell house at the usual time; and fortunately the rain has ceased, so I do not have the experience of a wet day—an experience I am quite willing to forego.
At dinner we have pork and beans, the beans not at all bad. We also have tea instead of coffee. I can make out but very little difference in these two beverages. I should say they must both be prepared in some such apparatus as is described by the boy in “Mugby Junction”: “A metallic object that’s at times the tea-urn and at times the soup-tureen, according to the nature of the last twang imparted to its contents which are the same groundwork.”
After dinner I have a long talk with Roger Landry. He grows confidential, telling much about himself—completing the story, part of which he gave me yesterday. It interests me greatly. And it is just this vital human element that is making my experiment so much more absorbing than I had expected.
At the usual time we march back to the shop, where I have two new experiences.
The first is a glimpse of the school. I am working away steadily with Jack when an officer suddenly appears at my elbow. “Is this Thomas Brown?”
“Yes, sir.”
“The Professor wants to see you at the school.”