"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