The Empty Sack Part 45

The chaplain s.h.i.+fted his ground.

"All the same, there are certain laws that among all peoples and at all times have been considered fundamental. Human society can't permit a man to steal-"

"Then human society shouldn't put a man in a position where he either has to steal or starve to death."

There was a repet.i.tion of the thin, ghostly smile.

"Oh, well, no one who's ordinarily honest and industrious ever-"

"Ever starves to death? That's a lie. Excuse me," he added, apologetically, "but that kind of talk just gets my goat. My father practically starved to death-he died from lack of proper nourishment, the doctor said-and there never was a more industrious or an honester man born. He gave everything he had to human society, and when he had no more to give, human society kicked him out. It has the law on its side, too, and because"-he gulped-"I came to his help in the only way I knew how they've chucked me into this black hole."

The chaplain found another kind of opening.

"So, you see, my boy, there's that. If you don't keep the law-"

"They can make you suffer for it," Teddy declared, excitedly. "Of course they can. They've made me suffer-G.o.d! how they've made me suffer-more, I believe, than anyone since Jesus Christ! But that's not what we were talking about. You started in to tell me that it's _right_ for me to suffer the way they're making me. That's what I kick against, and I'll keep on kicking till they send me to the chair."

"If you could do yourself any good by that-"

But just here the dialogue was interrupted by the appearance of Boole, the dapper, debonair young guard who generally announced Teddy's afternoon visitors.

"h.e.l.lo, old cuss! Gent to see you."

The chaplain prepared to move on to the neighboring cell. His leave-taking was kindly and with a great pity in it.

"We'll go on with this talk again, my boy. When you're able to get the right point of view-"

What would happen then was drowned in the clanging of the door behind him, as Teddy stepped out into the corridor.

"Who is it? Stenhouse?" he asked, as he walked along with the guard.

He had already dropped into the prisoner's habitual tone of hostile friendliness toward the officials with whom he came most in contact, recognizing the fact that had he met any of these men "on the outside"

they would have hobn.o.bbed together with the freemasonry of American young men everywhere. On their sides the keepers, apart from the fact that they considered Teddy "a tough lot," had ceased to show him animosity.

"It's not the lawyer," Boole answered now. "It's a swell guy with a limp. Looks to me as if he might be the gay young banker sport that the papers say is married to your sister."

Teddy felt his heart contracting in a spasm of dread. The one fact he knew of his brother-in-law was that he had sent him Stenhouse, one of the three or four lawyers most famous at the New Jersey bar for saving lives. This detail, too, the boy had learned from Boole.

"You'll not get the cur'nt, with him to defend you, believe _me_. Some bird! If he can't prove you innocent, he'll find a flaw in the law or the indictment or somethin'. Why, they say he once got a guy off, a Pole, the fella was, just on the spellin' of his name."

Having been warned by Stenhouse not to discuss his case with anyone, Teddy was discreetly silent. As a matter of fact, he had too much to think of to be inclined to talk. The circ.u.mstance that "young Coll" had become a relative was one of which he was just beginning to seize the importance. His bruised mind had been unable at first to apprehend it.

Slowly he was coming to the realized knowledge that he was allied to that Olympian race which the Collinghams represented to the Folletts, and that, at least, some of their power was engaged on his behalf.

It was confusing. Since the might that had struck him down was also coming to his aid, the issue was no longer clear-cut. To have all the right on one side and all the wrong on the other had simplified life.

Now, a right that was partly wrong and a wrong that was partly right had been personified, as it were, in this union through which a Collingham had become a Follett, and a Follett a Collingham.

Young Coll was standing where Jennie had stood on the first occasion of Teddy's coming to the visitors' room. He too waited with a smile. The minute he saw the lad appear timidly on the threshold he limped forward with outstretched hand.

"h.e.l.lo, Teddy!" His embarra.s.sment, being a kindly embarra.s.sment, was without awkwardness. "You didn't know I was going to be your brother the last time you saw me, did you?"

Teddy said nothing. He was not sullen, but neither was he friendly. A Collingham, even though married to his sister, was probably a person to be feared. Teddy's counsel to himself was to be on his guard against "the n.i.g.g.e.r in the woodpile."

"Perhaps it was my fault that you didn't," Bob went on, with some constraint. "That's the reason why I'm here. I dare say there isn't much I can do for you, old boy, but what little there is I want to do."

Teddy eyed him steadily, still without making a reply. Somehow they found chairs. Boole, having once more summed up the visitor, had retreated toward the guard who sat officially at the far end of the room.

"Looks like a good cuss," was Boole's whispered confidence. "Kind o'

soft-like most o' them swell sports that marries working goyls."

Bob was finding himself less and less at his ease. The boy not only came none of the way to meet him, but seemed to hold him as an enemy. By his silence and by the severity of his regard he conveyed the impression that young Coll, and not himself, had done the wrong.

It was an att.i.tude for which Bob was not prepared. Neither was he prepared for the defacement of all that had been glowing in the lad's countenance. Jennie had warned him against expecting the ruddy bright-eyed Teddy of the bank, but he hadn't looked for this air of youth blasted out of youthfulness. It was still youth, but youth marred, terrified, haunted, with a fear beyond that of gibbering old age.

With his lovingness and quickness of pity, Bob sought for a line by which he could catch on to the lad's interest.

"I asked my father to send you the best counsel in New Jersey, and I believe he's picked out Stenhouse."

Teddy regarded him grimly.

"Yes, he did." It seemed as if he meant to say no more, when, with a sardonic grunt, he went on, "Something like a guy who smashes a machine and then gets the best mechanician in the world to come and patch it up."

"Yes-possibly-it may be. Only, there's this to consider-that no one smashes a machine on purpose."

"No, I don't suppose he does. Only, it's all the same to the machine whether it's been smashed on purpose or by accident-so long as it'll never run again."

Bob considered this.

"You might say that of a machine-a dead thing from the start. You can't say it of a human being, who's alive from the beginning. See?"

"No, I don't see."

"And I don't know that I can explain. I'm only sure that a machine can be done for, and that a human being can't be. You can come to a time when it's no use doing anything more for the one; but you can never reach such a time with the other. With _him_, you may make mistakes or you may do him a great wrong, but you can't stop trying to put things right again."

"And you think you can put things right again for me?"

"I don't know what I can do. I haven't an idea. Very likely I can't do anything at all. I merely came back from South America to do what I could."

"Did you feel that you had to-because you'd married Jennie?"

"That was a reason. It wasn't the only one."

"What else was there?"

"I'm not sure that I can tell you. A lot of the things we do we do not from reason, but from instinct. But if you don't want me to try to take a hand-"

Under the dark streaks that blotted out what had once been Teddy's healthy coloring, a slow flush began to mantle.

"I don't want to be-to be bamboozled."