Gar was a challenge to me, for I saw in him 465 something wild, untamed, and, perhaps, untamable. I resolved to dispute with my own methods his mastery of the place. Such was his power over the other men that, could I only conquer him, the rest would be easy. I concentrated on Gar.
It was virgin soil. He was ignorant of the vocabulary of religion. This was the more amazing because he had spent fifteen or twenty years in prisons. His special difficulty, I found, was intemperance. My first task was to cure him of that.
One night, as he approached his bunk, he found me stretched out on the next one.
“Well, I’ll be——,” he said.
“What’s the matter, Gar?”
“Dat’s what I ask youse. What’s wrong with your machinery? Have ye been rejooced to the ranks, or has Gawd bounced ye?”
I went up close and whispered in his ear:
“Look here, old man, I’m glued to you; night, noon, and day, I’m going to eat, sleep, loaf, work, and play with you until every shred of your miserable soul belongs to God.”
He laughed loud enough to wake every man in the dormitory.
“Sonny,” he said, “I’ll give ye three nights, and if ye haven’t lost yer little goat be dat time, I’ll set up de drinks fur all hands at Halloran’s.”