“Now you see, I hope!  In a prison you’ve got to step light and go the other way around to get to a thing.  I’m favored here, and I’m supposed to be nursing rheumatism.”  He leaned forward to knock out his pipe dottle and found an opportunity to give Vaniman a wink.  “I arranged to come off the wall—­knowing all about your case.  I could ask to come out here, having found that night work didn’t help me!  Sunshine is good.  But you couldn’t ask for sunshine.  When a prisoner asks for a thing, they go on the plan of doing exactly opposite to what he seems to want.  From now on, having seen how I can operate, I expect you to do just what I tell you to do.”

Vaniman looked at the rifle.  Wagg waved it, commanding a convict to hurry past.

“Yes, sir!  You’ve got to do just as I say!” insisted the guard when the convict had gone out of earshot.

“How can I help myself?”

“Oh, I don’t mean that I’m going to team you around with this rifle!  I want you to co-operate.”

“Don’t you think I can co-operate better if you give me a line on what all this means?” pleaded the prisoner.

“Sure and slow is my policy.  I’m not just certain that I have you sized up right, as yet.  I’m of a suspicious nature.  But I’m finding this sunshine softening.”  Mr. Wagg rambled on, squinting up at the sky.  “Seven years is a long while to wait for a good time to come.  Figuring that your time will be paid for at the rate of about ten thousand dollars a year, while you’re in here, helps to smooth the feelings somewhat, of course.  But now that you’re in here you’re counting days instead of years—­and every day seems a year when you’re looking forward.  The newspapers said it was about seventy-five thousand dollars in good, solid gold.”

Wagg bored Vaniman with a side glance that was prolonged until a toiling convict had passed to a safe distance.  The young man was eyeing the guard with a demeanor which indicated that the tractable spirit commended by Mr. Wagg was no longer under good control.  However, Vaniman did manage to control his tongue.

After the silence had continued for some time, the guard slipped down from the stool and marched to and fro with his rifle in the hook of his arm, affording a fine display of attention to duty.

After he had returned to his stool, Wagg gave the ex-cashier plenty of time to take up the topic.  “Considering my position in this place, I reckon I’ve said about enough,” suggested the guard.

“I think you have said enough!” returned Vaniman, grimly.

“What have you to say?”

“I didn’t take that money from the Egypt Trust Company.  I don’t know where it is.  I never knew where it went.  And I’m getting infernally sick of having it everlastingly thrown up at me.”

“I thought I had you sized up better—­but I see I was wrong,” admitted Wagg.

“Of course you’re wrong!  You and the chaplain and the warden and the jury!  I didn’t take that money!”