rayton," said the doctor; "calls himself Ritson. Are you a
friend?"

Hugh Ritson's face quivered slightly.

"No," he answered, "I am not his friend." Then, after a pause, "But I
have an order to see him. Besides, I have just heard him discussed by a
company of wardens in a pot-house on the hill."

"Who were they? What were they like?"

"A tall man, one of them, fifty-five years of age, gray hair, grizzly
beard, dark, vindictive eyes, a gash on one cheek, and a voice like a
crow's."

"Humph! Jim-the-ladder--a discharged soldier."

"Another, a cadaverous fellow, with a plausible tongue."

"Horrocks--an old second-classer; served his time at Dartmoor and got
promotion--doubtful official discipline."

"They both deserve one more and much higher promotion," said Hugh
Ritson, with emphasis.

"You mean this." The doctor laughed, and put the forefinger of one hand,
held horizontally, to the tip of the other, held upright.

"Can it be possible that the law is unable to maintain a fair stand-up
fight with crime, and must needs call a gang of poltroons and
blackmailers to its assistance?"

"You heard a bad account of B 2001, I judge?"

"I heard of nothing that he had done which the Pope of Rome might have
feared to acknowledge."

"You are right--he's as good a man as there's on Portland Bill," said
the doctor, "and if he's not quite as immaculate as his holiness, he's
in the right of it this time."

Hugh Ritson glanced up.

"You've heard he's in the punishment cells," said the doctor. "By the
way, you'll not see him until Monday; he can't join his gang before, and
he hasn't a class privilege left, poor devil."

Hugh inquired the cause.

"Since he came here he's been yoked to a young fellow dying of
consumption. The lad didn't relish the infirmary--he lost his marks
toward remission there. He knew the days he had to serve, and used to
nick them off every night on his wooden spoon. It was a weary way from a
thousand back, back, back to one. And that Jim-the-ladder took delight
in keeping up the count by reports. The poor boy wanted to die in his
mother's arms. He had got his time down to a week, when the 'screw'
clapped as many marks on to him as added a month to his imprisonment.
Then he lost heart, and dropped down like a flounder, and when they
picked him up he was dead."

"Was B 2001 with him as usual?"

"He was; and he broke the strap, sprung on the warder, and tore his
rifle out of his hands. Jim-the-