"Hear me, Father Almighty, who has permitted this town of Caxton to exist
and has let me, Thy son, grow to manhood. I am Michael, Thy son. They have
put me in this jail where rats run across the floor and they stand in the
mud outside as I talk with Thee. Are you there, old Truepenny?"

A breath of cold air blew up the alley followed by a flaw of rain. The
group under the flickering lamp by the jail entrance drew back against the
walls of the building. Sam could see them dimly, pressing closely against
the wall. The man in the jail laughed loudly.

"I have had a philosophy of life, O Father," he shouted. "I have seen men
and women here living year after year without children. I have seen them
hoarding pennies and denying Thee new life on which to work Thy will. To
these women I have gone secretly talking of carnal love. With them I have
been gentle and kind; them I have flattered."

A roaring laugh broke from the lips of the imprisoned man. "Are you there,
oh dwellers in the cesspool of respectability?" he shouted. "Do you stand
in the mud with cold feet listening? I have been with your wives. Eleven
Caxton wives without babes have I been with and it has been fruitless. The
twelfth woman I have just left, leaving her man in the road a bleeding
sacrifice to thee. I shall call out the names of the eleven. I shall have
revenge also upon the husbands of the women, some of whom wait with the
others in the mud outside."

He began calling off the names of Caxton wives. A shudder ran through the
body of the boy, sensitised by the new chill in the air and by the
excitement of the night. Among the men standing along the wall of the jail
a murmur arose. Again they grouped themselves under the flickering light
by the jail door, disregarding the rain. Valmore, stumbling out of the