did he sicken with impatience and worry; this was when lipless prison rumour told him that Jennings lay ill in the hospital. Two weeks later, though, he heard that the guard was back at his duty in the jute-mill, and his bars roared out his relief in a rattle that reverberated long in the dusky corridor. But this had been a lesson; he saw the danger of procrastination, and concentrated his mind on the problem of leaving his cell. And finally the solution came.
He began to ask for needles often—as often as he dared, making the while a great show of repairing his garments. In this way, in a year he collected ten needles.
He took these ten needles and fitted them into the wooden stem of a brier pipe. He fitted them close together, like the teeth of a comb; they were hard; they made a diminutive saw; and they bit steel. With these needles he began to saw his bars.
He sawed for a year, and had three bars nearly through; and then his cell was changed.
His patience, now, had become something fun-
