position slightly, "that you rather fancy the idea of being
arrested. Isn't that a little quixotic, Mr. Smilk?"

"Huh?"

"I mean to say, do you expect me to believe you when you say you
relish being arrested?"

"I don't care a whoop whether you believe it or not. It's true."

"Have you no fear of the law?"

"Bless your heart, sir, I don't know how I'd keep body and soul
together if it wasn't for the law. If people would only let the law
alone, I'd be one of the happiest guys on earth. But, damn 'em, they
won't let it alone. First, they put their heads together and frame
up this blasted parole game on us. Just about the time we begin to
think we're comfortably settled up the river, 'long cmes some
doggone home-wrecker and gets us out on parole. Then we got to go to
work and begin all over again. Sometimes, the way things are
nowadays, it takes months to get back into the pen again. We got to
live, ain't we? We got to eat, ain't we? Well, there you are. Why
can't they leave us alone instead of drivin' us out into a cold,
unfeelin' world where we got to either steal or starve to death?
There wouldn't be one tenth as much stealin' and murderin' as there
is if they didn't force us into it. Why, doggone it, I've seen some
of the most cruel and pitiful sights you ever heard of up there at
Sing Sing. Fellers leadin' a perfectly honest life suddenly chucked
out into a world full of vice and iniquity and forced--absolutely
forced,--into a life of crime. There they were, livin' a quiet,