mined to," I said coldly.
"All right," he beamed good-naturedly, "and I'll tell you where to
find him. But I tremble for you when I think of all you are to prove by
Jackson's arm."
And so it came about that both the Bishop and I accepted Ernest's
challenges. They went away together, leaving me smarting with a sense
of injustice that had been done me and my class. The man was a beast. I
hated him, then, and consoled myself with the thought that his behavior
was what was to be expected from a man of the working class.
CHAPTER III
JACKSON'S ARM.
Little did I dream the fateful part Jackson's arm was to play in my
life. Jackson himself did not impress me when I hunted him out. I found
him in a crazy, ramshackle* house down near the bay on the edge of the
marsh. Pools of stagnant water stood around the house, their surfaces
covered with a green and putrid-looking scum, while the stench that
arose from them was intolerable.
* An adjective descriptive of ruined and dilapidated houses
in which great numbers of the working people found shelter
in those days. They invariably paid rent, and, considering
the value of such houses, enormous rent, to the landlords.
I found Jackson the meek and lowly man he had been described. He was
making some sort of rattan-work, and he toiled on stolidly while I
talked with him. But in spite of his meekness and lowliness, I fancied I
caught the first note of a nascent bitterness in him when he said:
"They might a-given me a job as watchman,* anyway."
* In those days thievery was incredibly prevalent.
Everybody stole property from everybody else. The lords of
society stole legally or else legalized their stealing,
while the poorer classes stole illegally. Nothing was safe
unless guarded. Enormous numbers of men were employed as
watchmen to protect property. The houses of the well-to-do
were a combination of safe deposit vault and fortress. The
appropriation of the personal belongings of others by our
own children of to-day is looked upon as a rudimentary
survival of the theft-characteristic that in those early
times was universal.
I got little out of him. He struck me as stupid, and yet the deftness
with which he worked with his one hand seemed to belie his stupidity.
This suggested an idea to me.
"How did you happen to get your arm caught in the machine?" I asked.
He looked at me in a s
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