"This fool is beastly conscientious. If he had only proved a bit of a
rogue, there was a chance--the ass!"

But he did not mean to yield the point yet.

"You are a very good man," he said to the porter, "a worthy honest
fellow, and you will know that I don't mean to offer you any thing like
a bribe."

The porter started.

"A bribe!" he said, with an expletive. "You had better not."

"Ahem!" coughed the cripple. "My friend, I have confined in this prison
my son, a poor misguided boy--"

"They are mostly that," said the porter shortly.

"But he is innocent."

"They are all innocent," said the porter.

"All?"

"According to their own showing."

"But my boy is."

"No doubt"