"Knew me—a negro? What did he say his name was?"
"They told me—let me see—Professor Jeams—something."
"Not Woodson?"
"Yes, that's it."
"Well, for once in his life he told the truth. He sold me the dog. You say he's in jail? I must go and get him out."
"You'll find it hard work. Fighting the police is a serious crime in this city. A man had better steal, rob, or kill anybody else than fight an officer."
"Who has most pull down there?"
"Well, Coll McSheen has considerable. He runs the police. He may be next Mayor."
I determined, of course, to go at once and see what I could do to get Jeams out of his trouble. I found him in the common ward among the toughest criminals in the jail—a massive and forbidding looking structure—to get into which appeared for a time almost as difficult as to get out. But on expressing my wish to be accorded an interview with him, I was referred from one official to another, until, with my back to the wall, I came to a heavy, bloated, ill-looking creature who went by the name of Sergeant Byle. I preferred my request to him. I might as well have undertaken to argue with the stone images which were rudely carved as Caryatides beside the entrance. He simply puffed his big black cigar in silence, shook his head, and looked away from me; and my urging had no other effect than to bring a snicker of amusement from a couple of dog-faced shysters who had entered and, with a nod to him, had sunk into greasy chairs.
"Who do you know here?"