“Just what I say!” agreed Seaton.  “But don’t be sure you’re the one that can unlock him.  Mrs. Seaton couldn’t and if she failed, any woman on earth would.  And I still believe that a chap that’s got any good in him will open up to a good woman.”

“His woman, man! His!  Not to somebody else’s woman.”  Allen’s tone was impatient.

“His woman!  Don’t talk like a chump, Frank!  Enoch’s only fourteen.”

“Makes no difference.  Your wife is an angel as I learned two years ago, but she may not have Enoch’s number, just the same.  If I were you, I’d mooch up to the kid’s room if he doesn’t come down promptly to supper.  His nerves are in rotten shape and he oughtn’t to be alone too long.”

Seaton nodded, and shortly after seven he knocked softly on Nucky’s door.  There was an inarticulate, “Come in!” Nucky was standing by the window in the dark room.

“Supper’s ready, old man.  You’d better have it now and get to bed early.  Jumping from sea level to a mile in the air makes a chap sleepy.  Are you washed up?”

“I’m all ready,” mumbled Nucky.

He went to bed shortly after eight.  Something forlorn and childish about the boy’s look as he said good night moved John Seaton to say,

“Tell a bell boy to open the door between our rooms, will you, Enoch?” and he imagined that a relieved look flickered in Nucky’s eyes.

Seaton himself went to bed and to sleep early.  He was wakened about midnight by a soft sound from Nucky’s room and he lay for a few moments listening.  Then he rose and turned on the light in his room, and in Nucky’s.  The boy hastily jerked the covers over his head.  Seaton pulled the extra blanket at the bed foot over his own shoulders, then he sat down on the edge of the bed and put his hand on Nucky’s heaving back.

“Don’t you think, if it’s bad enough to make you cry, that it’s time you told a friend about it, Enoch?” he said, his voice a little husky.

For a moment sobs strangled the boy’s utterance entirely.  Finally, he pulled the covers down but still keeping his head turned away, he said,

“I want to go home!”

“Home, Enoch?  Where’s your home?”

“N’ York’s my home.  This joint scares me.”

“Whom do you want to see in New York, Enoch?”

“Anybody!  Nobody!  Even the police station’d look better’n that thing.  I can feel it out there now, waitin’ and listenin’!”

Seaton stared blankly at the back of Nucky’s head.  His experiment was not turning out at all as he had planned.  Jack often had puzzled him but there had always been something to grasp with Jack.  His own boy had been such a good sport!  A good sport!  Suddenly Seaton cleared his throat.

“Enoch, among the men you know, what is the opinion of a squealer?”

“We hate him,” replied the boy, shortly.

“And the other night when you were arrested, you were rather proud of standing up and taking your punishment without breaking down.  If one of the men arrested at that time had broken down, you’d all have despised him, I suppose?”