and had five done already; and I got hold of religion. Oh, ’twas on the square all right. I know now it’s all rot, but I was on the square then. I was psalm-singing, and they got me paroled———
“It’s a fine thing, that parole business. If ye’ve got a bad friend in the world, he’s got ye. Every man has ye foul. Did you ever read the rules for paroled cons? Ye can’t breathe the wrong way, or back ye go. Ye’re a con just the same. And the whole outside is yer prison. And every citizen is a stool-pigeon a-watching to tell on ye.
“Well,’d made bad friends in the pen. Wan was yer friend Jennings (9009, in the darkness below, exploded in an oath); t’other was that cat-faced trusty of the captain’s office, Wilson (9009 swore again and spit out of his bunk). The two was just starting the dope ring—selling opium to the cons. I was a trusty, a-tending the cells. They needed the cell-tenders to peddle the dope to the cons, an’ they thought I was just the man fer that because I was playing smooth in
