Yollop | Page 8

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 world. Free grub, free bed, free doctor, free clothes,--he could have free liquor if the keepers would let his friends bring it in,--and his hours ain't any longer than any union man's hours. He don't have to pay dues to any labor union, he don't have to worry about strikes or strike benefits, he don't give a whoop what Gompers or anybody else says about Gary, and he don't care a darn whether the working man gets his beer or whether the revenue officers get it. He--"
"Wait a second, please. Just as a matter of curiosity, Cassius, I'd like to know what your views are on prohibition."
"Are you thinkin' of askin' me if I'll have something to drink?" inquired Mr. Smilk craftily.
"What has that to do with it?"
"A lot," said Mr. Smilk, with decision.
"Do you approve of prohibition?"
"I do," said the rogue. "In moderation."
"Well, as soon as the police arrive I'll open a bottle of Scotch. In the meantime go ahead with your very illuminating dissertation. I am beginning to understand why crime is so attractive, so alluring. I am almost able to see why you fellows like to go to the penitentiary."
"If you could only get shut