Yollop | Page 8

right foot in the other one," suggested Mr. Yollop.
Mr. Smilk stared. "I've seen a lot of kidders in my time, but you
certainly got 'em all skinned to death," said he.
Mr. Yollop puffed reflectively for awhile, pondering the situation.
"Well, suppose you remove one foot at a time, Cassius. As soon it is
fairly well rested, put it back again and then take the other one out for a
spell,--and so on. Half a loaf is better than no loaf at all."
Smilk withdrew his left foot from its drawer and sighed gratefully.
"As I was sayin'," he resumed, "if we could only put some kind of a
curb on these here tender-hearted boobs--and boobesses--the world
would be a much better place to live in. The way it is now, nine tenths
of the fellers up in Sing Sing never know when they'll have to pack up
and leave, and it's a constant strain on the nerves, I tell you. There
seems to be a well-organized movement to interfere with the personal
liberty of criminals, Mr. Poppup. These here sentimental reformers take
it upon themselves to say whether a feller shall stay in prison or not.
First, they come up there and pick out some poor helpless feller and say
'it's a crime to keep a good-lookin', intelligent boy like you in prison, so
we're going to get you out on parole and make an honest, upright
citizen of you. We're going to get you a nice job',--and so on and so
forth. Well, before he knows it, he's out and has to put up a bluff of
workin' for a livin'. Course, he just has to go to stealin' again. It makes
him sore when he thinks of the good, honest life he was leadin' up there

in the pen, with nothin' to worry about, satisfactory hours, plenty to eat,
and practically divorced from his wife without havin' to go through the
mill. If my calculations are correct, more than fifty per cent of the
crime that's bein' committed these days is the work of paroled convicts
who depended on the law to protect and support them for a given
period of time. And does the law protect them? It does not. It allows a
lot of pinheads to interfere with it, and what's the answer? A lot of poor
devils are forced to go out and risk their lives tryin' to--"
"Just a moment, please," interrupted Mr. Yollop. "You are talking a
trifle too fast, Cassius. Moderate your speed a little. Before we go any
further, I would like to be set straight on one point. Do you mean to tell
me that you actually prefer being in prison?"
"Well, now, that's a difficult question to answer," mused Mr. Smilk.
"Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. It's sort of like being married, I
suppose. Sometimes you're glad you're married and sometimes you
wish to God you wasn't. Course, I've only been married three or four
times, and I've been in the pen six times, one place or another, so I
guess I'm not what you'd call an unbiased witness. I seem to have a
leanin' toward jail,--about three to one in favor of jail, you might say,
with the odds likely to be increased pretty shortly if all goes well. Do
you mind if I change drawers?"
"Eh! Oh, I see. Go ahead."
Mr. Smilk put his right foot back into its drawer and withdrew the left.
"Gets you right across this tendon on the back of your ankle," he said.
"Now, you take the daily life of the average laboring man," he went on
earnestly. "What does he get out of it? Nothin' but expenses. The only
thing that don't cost him something is work. And all the time he's at
work his expenses are goin' on just the same, pilin' up durin' his
absence from home. Rent, food, fuel, light, doctor, liquor, clothes,
shoes,--everything pilin' up on him while he's workin' for absolutely
nothin' between pay days. The only time he gets anything for his work
is on pay day. The rest of the time he's workin' for nothin', week in and
week out. Say he works forty-four hours a week. When does he get his
pay? While he's workin'? Not much. He has to work over time
anywhere from fifteen minutes to half an hour--on his own time, mind
you--standin' in line to get his pay envelope. And then when he gets it,
what does he have to do? He has to go home and wonder how the hell

he's goin' to get through the next week with nothin' but carfare to go on
after his wife has told him to come across. Now you take a convict. He
hasn't an expense in the