to snatch a hasty luncheon at a farm-town restaurant, he did not once leave his place, which was two seats behind mine and on the opposite side of the car. On the contrary, like a seasoned traveler, he made himself comfortable behind the barricade of hand-baggage and wore out the entire time with sundry newspapers and magazines. Moreover, at our common destination he did not follow me to the one old-fashioned hotel; instead, he led the way to it, and was buying a cigar at the little counter show-case when I came up to bargain, with another of my precious dollars, for the supper, lodging and breakfast which were to launch me upon the new career.
After this, I saw the fat-faced traveling man but twice, and both times casually. At supper he had a small table to himself in one corner of the room; and the following morning, when I went out to lay siege to my new world, he was smoking in the hotel office and again buried in a newspaper. Two hours later I had found employment driving a grocer's delivery wagon, and in the triumph of having so soon found even this humblest of footholds in a workaday world, I had completely forgotten him.
Having thus made my cast for fortune and secured the foothold, it took me less than a week to learn that I had made a capital mistake in choosing a small town. Under that condition of my parole which required me to report in my true character to the town marshal I assured myself that I might as well have published my story in the county newspaper. Before the end of the week half of my customers on the delivery route were beginning to look askance at me, and when the Saturday night came I was discharged. I knew perfectly well what was coming when the boss, a big-bodied, good-natured man who had made his money as a farmer and was now losing it as the town grocer, called me into his little box of an office at the back of the shop.
"Say, Weyburn; when I asked you where you had been working before you came here, you didn't tell me the truth," was the way he began on me.
"I told you I had worked in a bank in Glendale," I protested; "which was and is the truth."
"I know; but you didn't tell me that you'd put in the last three years in the pen, and were out on parole."
"No, I didn't tell you that. But I would have told you if you had asked me."
"I can't stand for it," he grumbled, chewing at the unlighted cigar which was his Saturday night indulgence. "And if I could, the customers wouldn't. I suppose as many as a dozen women have been to me in the last few days. They say they can't afford to be watchin' the back door every time you come 'round with the groceries. You see how it is."
I saw; but I was still foolish enough to try to stem the pitiless tide.
"Would it make any difference if I were to say that I was as innocent of the crime for which I was convicted as any of these frightened women?" I suggested.
"They all say that," was the colorless retort. "The point is, Weyburn, that you was convicted. There ain't no gettin' 'round that. You've worn the stripes, and you'll just have to make up your mind to live it down before you can expect people to forget it."
If I hadn't been the wretched victim of this paradox it might have provoked a smile.
"How am I ever going to live it down, Mr. Bucks, if nobody will give me a chance?" I asked.
"I know," he agreed readily enough. "But I'm losin' money here, every day, as it is, and I can't afford to make experiments. I'm sorry for you, honestly, Weyburn; but you see how it is."
"Yes, I see," I returned. "You think I ought to be given a chance, but you prefer to have somebody else give it to me. I don't blame you. Perhaps under similar conditions I'd do the same thing myself. Pay me and I'll disappear."
He did pay me, and tried to give me two dollars more than the agreed weekly wage, generously putting it upon the ground of the lack of notice. I shall always be glad that I still had pride enough left to refuse the charity. Even at this early twisting of the thumb-screws I was beginning to realize that self-respect would be the first thing to go by the board, and the fight to save it was almost instinctive.
Before leaving Bucks I tried to find out how he had learned my story; this though I was definitely charging the exposure to the town marshal as being the only person who could have spread it abroad. To my surprise, the grocer defended the marshal promptly and warmly.
"That shows how little you know Cal Giddings," he retorted. "He's the last man on top of earth to go 'round givin' you a black eye of that sort."
"May I ask what reason you have for thinking so?" I inquired.
"Sure you may. I've known Cal ever since we was little kids together. I've seen him every day this week, and he knew you was workin' for me. If he'd 'a' told anybody, it would 'a' been me; you can bet your hat on that."
"Then where did you hear the story?" I persisted.
"Why, I dunno just where I did hear it first. Everybody in town seems to know it," he asserted; and with this unsatisfying answer I was obliged to be contented.
The next attempt was made in a small industrial city on the opposite side of the State. This time I went to the chief of police as soon as I arrived, and after making the required report, I had it out with him in plain speech.
"I am going to try to get work here in your city," I said, "and I'd like to know beforehand how much leeway you are going to give me."
The portly thief-taker leaned back in his chair and regarded me with a coldly appraisive eye. He was a coarse-featured man with a face that would have fitted admirably in any rogues' gallery in the land.
"You're in bad, young fellow," he growled. "We've got plenty and more than enough of your kind in this town, without takin' on any more."
"But I am keeping my parole," I pleaded. "I have come to you like a man the first thing, and have made my report according to the conditions. Somebody has got to give me a chance."
"You'll earn it, damn' good and plenty, if you stay here to get it," was the gruff response. "What kind of a job are you lookin' for?"
It was hard to confide in such a man, even casually, but I had no choice.
"I am willing to take anything I can get, but my experience has been mostly in office work," I told him; adding: "I suppose I might call myself a fairly expert bookkeeper."
"Umph!" he grunted, shifting his cigar from one corner of the hard-bitted mouth to the other. "That means that you want to try for a job where you can work the till-tapping game again."
Not having as yet learned my lesson line by line, I was incautious enough to say: "I have yet to work it the first time."
"Like hell you have! See here, young fellow—you needn't spring that kind of talk on me. I know you and your kind up one side and down the other. You say you've put three years in 'stir' and that settles it." At this point he broke off short, righted his chair with a snap and reached for a bill-spindle on his desk. After a glance at one of the impaled memoranda he sat back again, chewing his cigar and staring into vacancy. A full minute elapsed before he deigned to become once more aware of my presence. Then he whirled upon me to rap out an explosive question.
"What did you say your name was?" and when I told him: "Aw right; you come back here this afternoon and we'll see whether you stay or move on. That's all. Now get out. I'm busy."
I went away and killed time as I could until the middle of the afternoon. Upon returning to police headquarters I found the hard-faced chief tilted in his chair with his feet on his desk, looking as if he hadn't moved since my visit of the forenoon. When he saw who it was cutting off the afternoon sunlight he straightened up with a growl, rummaged in a file of papers and jerked out a typewritten sheet which he glanced over as one who reads only the headings.
"James Bertrand Weyburn, eh?" he rasped. "I know all about you now, and you may as well can all that didn't-do-it stuff. Forget it and come down to business. You say you want to hit the straight-and-narrow: how would a job in a coal yard fit you?—keepin' books and weighin'-in the coal cars?"
I told him, humbly enough, that I was too nearly a beggar to be a chooser; that I'd be only too glad to get