be remembered
that all this while I lay helpless on my back, my arms pinioned along
with my body inside the jacket. When they offered me food--dry prison
bread--I shook my head. I closed my eyes in advertisement that I was
tired of their presence. The pain of my partial resuscitation was
unbearable. I could feel my body coming to life. Down the cords of my
neck and into my patch of chest over the heart darting pains were making
their way. And in my brain the memory was strong that Philippa waited me
in the big hall, and I was desirous to escape away back to the half a day
and half a night I had just lived in old France.

So it was, even as they stood about me, that I strove to eliminate the
live portion of my body from my consciousness. I was in haste to depart,
but Warden Atherton's voice held me back.

"Is there anything you want to complain about?" he asked.

Now I had but one fear, namely, that they would unlace me; so that it
must be understood that my reply was not uttered in braggadocio but was
meant to forestall any possible unlacing.

"You might make the jacket a little tighter," I whispered. "It's too
loose for comfort. I get lost in it. Hutchins is stupid. He is also a
fool. He doesn't know the first thing about lacing the jacket. Warden,
you ought to put him in charge of the loom-room. He is a more profound
master of inefficiency than the present incumbent, who is merely stupid
without being a fool as well. Now get out, all of you, unless you can
think of worse to do to me. In which case, by all means remain. I
invite you heartily to remain, if you think in your feeble imaginings
that you have devised fresh torture for me."

"He's a wooz, a true-blue, dyed-in-the-wool wooz," Doctor Jackson
chanted, with the medico's delight in a novelty.

"Standing, you _are_ a wonder," the Warden said. "You've got an iron
will, but I'll break it as sure as God made little apples."

"And you've the heart of a rabbit," I retorted. "One-tenth the jacketing
I have received in San Quentin would have squeezed your rabbit heart out
of your long ears."

Oh, it was a touch, that, for the Warden did have unusual ears. They
would have interested Lombroso, I am sure.

"As for me," I went on, "I laugh at you, and I wish no worse fate to the
loom-room than that you should take charge of it yourself. Why, you've
got me down and worked your wickedness on me, and still I live and laugh
in your face. Ineffici