Part 3

_Porter_: Doctor, I’m told Valentine has an old mother outside, and he’s never been allowed to see her. Have you any idea of the reason?

_Dr. Walters_: I never have ideas on such subjects, Porter; I leave them to the warden. I think you’d be well-advised to do the same.

_Porter_: Yes, sir; I understand you.

_Dr. Walters_: Have those medical supplies come?

_Porter_: Yes. They’ll be unpacked and on the shelves before morning.

_Dr. Walters_: Those aspirin tablets made up?

_Porter_: All ready.

_Dr. Walters_: You know, Porter, we can buy such things made up, if you prefer.

_Porter_: No, sir, I’ve plenty of time—no complaint on that score. I was brought up to percolate my own paregoric and roll my own pills.

_Dr. Walters_: By the way, Porter—this is serious—I’ve been looking into the matter of that missing alcohol; there’s more of it gone.

_Porter_: Is that so, doctor?

_Dr. Walters_: Is there anybody you suspect?

_Porter_: Well, you know how it is in a prison, there are many men who might take alcohol; but there’s no one I have any reason to name.

_Dr. Walters_: Well, it has certainly got to be stopped. I don’t like the job of playing detective, but some one has to do it. I’ll slip a little drug into the alcohol, and make somebody mighty sick.

_Porter_: I’ll do my best to watch, doctor; but you know I’m not here all the time.

_Dr. Walters_: I have an interesting dissection to do this evening. If there are any calls, you might go for me.

_Porter_: All right, doctor.

_Dr. Walters_: You’ve come to know our line of drugs about as well as I do.

(_He goes off. Porter sits at desk, his head in his hands. The light fades to red. Sound of guitar and castanets, rising louder. Espiritu de la Vina enters, dancing seductively; she directs her attention to Porter, who gradually looks up, gazing at her; she sings_)

A beber, a beber, a apurar Las Copas de licor Que el vino hara olvidar Las penas del amor.

(_Porter watches her more and more intensely, half rising to join her. She dances her way to a shelf of bottles, from which she takes down a large square druggist’s bottle, labeled with a red letter “A.” She carries it to him, and sets it on the desk before him, then dances back, and takes from the shelf an enlarged druggist’s label, in red letters: “Alcohol.” She sets this also before him, and sings in a burst of excitement_)

De este sabroso jugo, la blanca espuma Aleja de las penas la negra bruma, Si Dios hubiera hecho De vino el mar, de vino el mar, Yo me volviera pato, para nadar, para nadar:— Esta es la vida, bebamos mas, Esta es la vida, bebamos mas.

_The curtain falls with Porter’s eyes riveted upon the bottle._

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ACT II.

SCENE: _the drug-store, as in Act I._

AT RISE: _the time is early evening, and Porter is percolating his own paregoric and rolling his own pills; he works silently and steadily._

_Al Jennings_ (_appears in doorway at left; a wiry little man, wearing the uniform of a first-class prisoner—grey, with black stripes on trouser seams; vivid red hair and a temper to correspond; warmhearted to his friends, a trouble to his enemies_): Bill.

_Porter_ (_turns and stares_): Why, Colonel! You’re out of the hole!

_Jennings_: I’m out, and promised a job in the postoffice! How do you like me in my new dress? I’ve come to pay my thanks.

_Porter_: To me?

_Jennings_: They tell me, Bill, that you had the main finger where he had to listen. It’s not every convict has a chance to save his warden’s life!

_Porter_: Colonel, you and I are insiders. What saved that warden’s life was my bedside manner! Nature has endowed me with a rare blessing, the ability to keep silent when I have nothing to say. The warden was dying—yes, but dying of fright.

_Jennings_: Men sometimes die of swallowing arsenic, Bill.

_Porter_: Fowler’s solution, it was, and he hadn’t taken enough to kill. I gave him a dose of simplicity mixed with gall. I said: “Drink, and you’ll be well.” He did, and he was.

_Jennings_: And then you said to him: “Warden, I have a friend of happier days, who is having the soul wrenched out of him in solitary.”

_Porter_: I’ll tell you, Colonel; it’s fortunate that you have the gift of the gab, and have provided me with biographical details to touch the heart of even an Ohio politician. “Warden,” I said, “this Al Jennings, this outlaw, this desperado whom the newspapers and the railway detectives have hunted over two continents for ten years—this Al Jennings was born outdoors in a mountain snowstorm; he was suckled upon frost, he was weaned upon kicks and beatings, he was a street rat, hunted through the alleys; he was driven into crime by cattle thieves and political grafters—in the state of Oklahoma they have such, Mr. Warden. His crimes were wholesome, outdoor crimes, as one might say; lovely, picturesque, heroic deeds, which school-boys will thrill to throughout all time. To hold up a transcontinental express, and dynamite the baggage car, and ride all night through mountain canyons with sacks of treasure at your saddle-bow; to gallop into town with a fusillade of bullets, and gallop away with the inside contents of a bank—that, Mr. Warden, involves an expenditure of ammunition sufficient to constitute a war. A train-bandit may be a man of true loyalty, who would die before he would throw down a friend. Give Al Jennings a chance, and you’ll find him a valuable assistant; and more than that, he’ll stroll into your office of an evening, and produce for you an elaboration of anecdotal pyrotechnics to restore the shining days of Haroun al Raschid and his Scheherazade.” That’s what I gave him, Colonel.

_Jennings_ (_deeply moved_): Bill, you can’t imagine what I’ve been through in this place, it’s been a blazing hell. They’ve starved me for months on end. We outdoor men, we fade away and shrivel in a place like this. Look at me, Bill—what would I do on a horse? When I first came in, and learned that you were here, and you never came to see me, my heart died. Three weeks passed, and you didn’t come; I thought, Well, he’s got a safe berth in the hospital, he’s not going to risk it. Then, you were giving out the Sunday quinine, and you slipped me a word under the guard’s nose—then I thought it over, and realized the truth: Bill had always been so dignified, so reserved—he couldn’t bear to have a friend see him in prison garb!

_Porter_: Colonel, I have buried the corpse of my grief; let us not dig it up.

_Jennings_: All right; but let me say this: What you’re here for I’ve never asked, but I’ve a suspicion they framed you.

_Porter_: Colonel, you have seen my incompetence when it comes to matters of money, whether to gain it or to keep it. It is safe to say that such a man would not be wisely placed in a bank.

_Jennings_: Somebody put it over on you! And now they’ve put the brand upon you, they’ve made you a convict!

_Porter_ (_with excitement_): Don’t say it!

_Jennings_: But it’s true.

_Porter_: It is not true! I am _not_ a convict!

_Jennings_: What do you mean, Bill?

_Porter_: I refuse to wear the brand!

_Jennings_: But how can you help it?

_Porter_: When I go from here I shall change my name, and no one shall know me.

_Jennings_: Men have tried that, many and many a time, but they never get away with it; the story leaks, and then it’s worse than ever—some scoundrel comes along and blackmails you, and you’re at his mercy. Face it out, Bill, live it down.

_Porter_: Never, never! A man might as well die in this place, and have the bumping of the wheelbarrow down that corridor for his requiem. I will not go through life with that brand upon my forehead.

_Jennings_: Well, Bill, our paths are different; I’m going to keep my own name and be what I am.

_Porter_: That’s the way for you, Colonel; you’re a great man, a celebrity; you’ve had your picture in the papers, you can go upon the stage, they’ll put you in that new device they’ve invented, the pictures that move, and that they throw upon a screen. You’re a historical figure—you’ll go down to the future with Robin Hood of Sherwood Forest. But me—what am I? A drug-clerk, a newspaper scribbler, a bank-teller who didn’t find as much money in his drawer as he should have had. (_a pause_) Come over and see me, Colonel, when you can get off, and tell me stories for me to write up.

_Jennings_: I’ll tell you stories of this prison! (_lowering his voice_) For example, how I burned down the bolt-works!

_Porter_ (_startled_): Oh, my God, man!

_Jennings_: It’s a fact.

_Porter_: Don’t say anything like that to me! I don’t want to know things like that! If it should leak, you might think I was to blame.

_Jennings_: Never in this world. Bill. When two men have rambled over two continents together, fleeing from the law—

_Porter_: Someone might overhear you, now! (_looks about fearfully_)

_Jennings_ (_coming closer and whispering_): It was that lousy scoundrel, Hickson, the bolt contractor, that brought it on himself. He pays the state thirty cents a day for the labor of us prison slaves, and gets eight dollars’ work out of us. He promised me extra pay if I’d raise the product of my machine, so as to show the others it could be done. Well, I did it, and I went to him for my pay—just think of it, he owed me twenty-five cents, and he was too dirty mean to pay it! Told me to go to hell, and if I made any fuss about it, he’d have me paddled and take the hide off my back. Well, first thing, I hurled a monkey-wrench at his head; it missed him by half an inch, and went through a plank. They paddled me for that. When I came out, I spent a month intriguing to get two candles. I tested one of them in my cell, to see how many hours it would burn; then I climbed into the loft, and set the other in a lot of boxes and shavings, and set it burning—I had it figured to start the fire in the night. Well, I heard the alarm, and I danced for glee, and when the fire spread, and the big bolt machines come crashing down from the fourth story, by Jesus, I shrieked like I’d gone crazy. Half a million dollars that fire cost Hickson, and he didn’t have a cent of insurance! Some day, when I get out, I’ll whisper it in his ear, and he’ll wish he’d paid me that twenty-five cents. How’s that for a story, Bill?

_Porter_ (_gravely_): No, Colonel, I can’t use that story, I can’t write about things like that. No, you’ll never find a word in my writings about a prison, or anything that happens in a prison. I can’t face such things, I don’t know what to do about them. I can only suggest a little kindness to men, a little humor, hoping that some day it may become contagious.

_Jennings_: I know you, Bill.

_Porter_: You have had troubles, Colonel; I have had them also. Underneath this room is the basement where they do their punishments; I hear men screaming and moaning—night after night I have to pace the floor and listen, helpless—I have to do my work to that music. I suffer till I am dripping with perspiration—but I am merely one of the victims, it would be my turn next if I should interfere. At first I thought I couldn’t stand it; but—it seems we underestimate our power to endure. I have learned to go the rounds with the doctor, as Dante traveled through the seven hells; I answer calls when men have hanged themselves in their cells, or cut their throats, or bitten the arteries in their wrists. Every night in this hospital at least one man dies; they bring a wheelbarrow, and throw in the corpse, and a sheet over it, and cart it to the dead-house—through that passage they go (_indicating the passage across the stage, on the other side of the counter_) I hear them—rumble, rumble, rumble—bump, bump—while I’m trying to write. (_he pauses_) I have put a shell about me. I say, I am not here; I do not belong in this world; I have nothing to do with it; I live in my spirit, in my dreams. That is why I do not permit you to call me a convict, or to say that I carry the brand.

_Jennings_: Bill, let us fly away together, to those happy days in Central America, before the law closed its tight fist on us!

_Porter_: Be once more that little scarecrow, clad in a battered silk hat, and a dress-suit with one tail torn off, dumped out of the surf on the coast of Honduras!

_Jennings_: Be that grave, ample figure in a Palm Beach suit, steaming and fanning yourself in front of the United States consulate! You had your bedside manner with you that morning, Bill, in spite of an overdose of aguardiente!

_Porter_: Ah, dio mio, but those were happier days than we knew! If only your thirty thousand dollars had been dowered with immortality, we might have been there now!

_Jennings_: The mistake you made, Bill, was when you wouldn’t come with us to hold up that bank. If we’d had you, we’d have been all right.

_Porter_: You are joking, Colonel? In an emergency, I’d hardly know the hind-end of a gun from the front. No, I couldn’t do anything like that; I couldn’t threaten to shoot a man.

_Jennings_: You remember, I offered to let you hold the horses.

_Porter_: No, I couldn’t even hold the horses. We had to part company at that place.

(_The Judge and Delacour enter at left, on the far side of the counter, and stand listening. The Judge is an irascible elderly convict, grey-haired, tall and lean; Delacour is a fat, pudgy, and pompous old man. Both wear uniform of first-class convicts; both have decided Southern accents_)

_The Judge_: Ahem! Ah beg pahdon fo’ interruptin these joyful reminiscences, but would it be possible fo’ us to have medical attention, suh?

_Jennings_ (_turns_): Well, look who’s here! The Judge! And Delacour! Bankers’ Row moves to the hospital! Bill, have you the pleasure of knowing these two gents?

_Porter_: Only professionally.

_Jennings_: Permit me the honor. My friend, Mr. William Sydney Porter, my friend, Judge Gordon Powhatan, retired banker of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Also, my friend Anatole Richemine Carillon Delacour, retired banker of New Orleans. Here are two careers which prove to us the power of money in a great democracy! You and I, Bill, did our robbing in thousands or tens of thousands; we are small fish. But the Judge and Delacour are whales—they got away with several millions apiece!

_Delacour_ (_angrily_): Jennin’s, that is silly stuff!

_Jennings_: He let his bank down for two millions, and has it all salted away—

_Delacour_: Ah tell you that is rubbish!

_Jennings_: Therefore he never had to live on the range like you and me; he has apartments in Bankers’ Row—palatial rooms with a bed and desk and all modern conveniences—a valet to press his striped trousers—mail three times a day—telegraph service direct from the warden’s office—

_Delacour_: Nonsense, Ah tell you!

_Jennings_ (_with teasing delight_): Money will buy anything in prison, Bill—just as outside! Make yourself agreeable to these powerful magnates, and they’ll invite you to the feasts they spread every Sunday afternoon. Delacour has built a complete kitchenette behind the walls of the postoffice, and there he waves his magic wand—all the rest of the week your mouth waters at the memory of his sauces and flavorings—red-hot with chili peppers, Creole style. The Judge mixes drinks, and they’re Creole style, red-hotter!

_Judge_: You gabble like a turkey, suh. I need medical attention, Ah tell you.

_Porter_: What is it, Judge?

_Jennings_: Nothing but alcoholism, you may be sure—tasting his own toddies before he serves them—

_Judge_: Ah have a prescription, suh. (_hands paper to Porter_)

_Delacour_: And Ah too. (_he also hands paper_)

_Jennings_: Invite Mr. Porter to the next meeting of the Recluse Club, Judge.

_Judge_: We should be honored by yo’ presence, suh.

_Porter_ (_takes pills from a bottle and hands them to Judge; gives Delacour a paper of powder_): There are your prescriptions. I shall be pleased to come, Judge.

_Judge_: Ah shall see that an extra plate is set.

_Delacour_: But fo’get the brayin’s of that jackass Jennin’s. (_they start to the door, left_)

_Jennings_: You know how it is, Bill, these old bags of money are always frightened to death, they hide their gold, and lie about it—

_Delacour_ (_in the doorway, shouts excitedly_): Rot! Rot, Ah tell you, rot! (_they go off_)

_Jennings_ (_laughing heartily_): We shall have a circus with those old banker boys! You know Raidler—my pal at the postoffice? A great lad—a hold-up artist—used to be known as “the Oklahoma terror,” but they shot him in the neck, and now he has trouble in navigating. But his tongue is still alive, and he’s the terror of “Bankers’ Row”—kids the life out of the pompous old duffers. That fat dumpling, Delacour, stole a fortune down in New Orleans, and Raidler gets him crazy, talking about his vast wealth, and his power in the prison. It really is a rotten graft, and they’re scared the story will leak out, and break into the papers. (_becoming serious_) Well, Bill, I must be moving. I have an errand for the warden. He had more than one reason for letting me out of the hole, it appears. (_a pause_) You never ask any questions, do you, Bill?

_Porter_: You will tell me what you want me to know.

_Jennings_ (_laughs_): Yes, of course. You know Jimmie Valentine?

_Porter_: I see him every night.

_Jennings_: Well, Jimmie has a chance to get a pardon.

_Porter_: What?

_Jennings_: So the warden says.

_Porter_: What has happened?

_Jennings_: Do you read the papers?

_Porter_: Yes.

_Jennings_: Read about this Press-Post scandal?

_Porter_: I saw the headlines.

_Jennings_: Well, here’s the biggest newspaper in this city, and the officers have been plundering it, and mixing up the books; now the treasurer has skipped town, and locked the papers in the vault, and no one has the combination.

_Porter_: I saw that.

_Jennings_: The courts are helpless; they’ve got to open the vault, and they daren’t use dynamite for fear of destroying the papers. So there’s Jimmie’s chance.

_Porter_: You mean, they want him to open it?

_Jennings_: The warden asked me what I thought of the possibility. I said, “I’ll lay you a wager he’ll do it in less than thirty seconds by a stop-watch.” “Will he have to have tools?” he asked. “He don’t use tools,” I said; “he has a little trick.” “Will he consent to do it?” “I don’t know that,” I said. “The state of Ohio has never done much for him, you must admit.” I tried to bargain for a pardon. I said, “Here’s a man that’s been in prison most of his life, since he was ten years old. He’s dying of T. B.—had three hemorrhages in the hospital. Surely it won’t hurt the state of Ohio to let him die in his old mother’s arms.” The warden said, “Tell him I’ll ask the governor for a pardon, and I think I can get it—at least, the governor has never yet turned down a request from me.” What do you think, Bill?

_Porter_: Well, Jimmie’s a peculiar fellow, you know.

_Jennings_: What the men here call a “stir bug”; got the prison poison in his soul. But I know him better than anybody else; we were on the range together. Jimmie was an alley-rat, like me; when he was ten years old, he stole a loaf of bread or something, and they sent him to the reformatory; when he came out, eight years later, they had reformed him into a thoroughly qualified cracksman. Now he’s a third-time offender—habitual criminal they call it—all privileges denied—can’t write a letter or even get one, can’t see his poor old mother—hasn’t seen her for sixteen years—

_Porter_: That’s the ghastliest thing about it, Colonel.

_Jennings_: I know. The warden says he’s powerless; it’s the law of this august state of Ohio.

(_Joe enters, right, from the hospital; he has his broom and cleaning rags, and approaches diffidently_)

_Porter_: Well, Colonel, we on the inside see what you might describe as the seamy side of the law.

_Joe_: Misteh Porteh, suh, would Ah botheh you if Ah was to empty de trash-basket now, suh?

_Porter_: You might do something else. See if Jimmie Valentine is able to come here.

_Joe_: Yes, suh, right away, suh. (_hurries off right_)

_Porter_: Did Jimmie ever tell you how he does that trick of opening safes?

_Jennings_: It’s quite simple. He takes a file, and files his finger nails across the middle right down to the flesh—

_Porter_: Oh, horrible!

_Jennings_: He lays the raw quivering flesh against the lock, while he turns the dial with his other hand. His nerves are so sensitive that he can feel the tumblers when they fall; so it’s just the same as if he knew the combination. How’s that for a story, Bill?

_Porter_: My God, I’ll never write anything like that! That’s too horrible to think about!

_Jennings_: Bill, there are men who would file one hand off to get out of this pen. (_a pause_) At the time I tried to make my getaway, Jimmie came forward to take the blame. Said he’d got the saws for me, and tempted me to try it. Of course, he was lying, and the warden knew he was lying; just the same, Jimmie got reduced to the lowest grade, and that’s what brought him to the hospital, I guess. I saw his mother for him, and told him about it, and Bill, he cried like a baby! But the great state of Ohio can’t find any good in such a man.

_Porter_: The great state of Ohio would seem to be lacking somewhat in spiritual intuition.

_Valentine_ (_enters, right; a tall, emaciated man of about forty; once handsome and debonair, now he is surly and grim; speaks with a slow drawl; wears the black and white stripes of a third-class prisoner, and walks feebly. Joe stays close by his side, ready to support him if needed_) Hello, Al. Evenin’, Mr. Porter.

_Jennings_ (_offers him chair_): Have a seat, Jimmie.

_Valentine_ (_lets himself carefully into chair_): What’s the dope, Al?

_Jennings_: Good dope, Jimmie. The warden says you’ve a chance at a pardon.

_Valentine_: What’s that?

_Jennings_: Straight goods.

_Valentine_ (_after staring at him_): What’s the son-of-a-bitch tryin’ to get out of me?

_Jennings_: He wants something, of course—

_Valentine_: Spit it out.

_Jennings_: You know this situation of the Press-Post?

_Valentine_: Oh, _that_! (_a pause_) So they want me to open the vault for ’em!

_Jennings_: That’s it, Jimmie.

_Valentine_: Close to forty years I’ve lived in the state of Ohio, and here’s the first time they’ve had any use for me.

_Jennings_: The main finger asked me, could you do it.

_Valentine_: I can do it all right. Yes, I can do it.

_Jennings_: I made a bargain with him; he promises—

_Valentine_: Al, you’re a good scout, but quit kiddin’ yourself.