this
institution under duress. The wind was driving the snow before it in
curious, interesting whirls. Eddie Zanders, the sheriff's deputy on
guard at the court of Quarter Sessions, accompanied him and his father
and Steger. Zanders was a little man, dark, with a short, stubby
mustache, and a shrewd though not highly intelligent eye. He was anxious
first to uphold his dignity as a deputy sheriff, which was a very
important position in his estimation, and next to turn an honest penny
if he could. He knew little save the details of his small world, which
consisted of accompanying prisoners to and from the courts and the
jails, and seeing that they did not get away. He was not unfriendly to
a particular type of prisoner--the well-to-do or moderately
prosperous--for he had long since learned that it paid to be so.
To-night he offered a few sociable suggestions--viz., that it was rather
rough, that the jail was not so far but that they could walk, and that
Sheriff Jaspers would, in all likelihood, be around or could be aroused.
Cowperwood scarcely heard. He was thinking of his mother and his wife
and of Aileen.

When the jail was reached he was led to the central portion, as it was
here that the sheriff, Adlai Jaspers, had his private office. Jaspers
had recently been elected to office, and was inclined to conform to all
outward appearances, in so far as the proper conduct of his office was
concerned, without in reality inwardly conforming. Thus it was generally
known among the politicians that one way he had of fattening his rather
lean salary was to rent private rooms and grant special privileges to
prisoners who had the money to pay for the same. Other sheriffs had done
it before him. In fact, when Jaspers was inducted into office, several
prisoners were already enjoying these privileges, and it was not a part
of his scheme of things to disturb them. The rooms that he let to the
"right parties," as he invariably put it, were in the central portion
of the jail, where were his own private living quarters. They were
unbarred, and not at all cell-like. There was no particular danger of
escape, for a guard stood always at his private door instructed "to
keep an eye" on the general movements of all the inmates. A prisoner so
accommodated was in many respects quite a free person. His meals were
served to him in his room, if he wished. He could read or play cards, or
receive guests; and if he had any favorite musical instrument,