“I don’t know,” I said, “but I imagine that in connection with the actual inadequacy of the equipment one would find reflected the same makeshift character in the attitude and actions of those who handle the city’s dead.  It used to be the case, at least, that the facilities for keeping records were often almost totally neglected, and not through the fault of the Morgue keepers, entirely.  But, I understand it is better now.”

“This is terrible,” repeated Carton, averting his face.  “Really, Jameson, it makes me feel like a hound, for ever thinking that Murtha might have been putting up a game on me.  Poor old Murtha—­I should have preferred to remember him as the ‘Smiling Boss’ as everyone always called him!”

I called to mind the last time we had seen Murtha, in Carton’s office as the bearer of an offer which had made Carton almost beside himself with anger at the thought of the insult that he would compromise with the organization.  What a contrast, this, with the Murtha who, in turn, had been trembling with passion at Carton’s refusal!

And yet I could not but reflect on the strangeness of it all—­the fact that the organization, of which Murtha was a part, had by its neglect and failure to care for the human side of government when there was graft to be collected, brought about the very conditions which had made possible such neglect of the district leader’s body, as it had been bandied back and forth, unwittingly by many who owed their very positions to the organization.

I could not help but think that if he had served humanity with one-half the zeal which he had served graft, this could not have happened.

The more I contemplated the case, the more tragic did it seem to me.  I longed for the assignment of writing the story for the Star--the chance I would have had in the old days to bring in a story that would have got me a nod of approval from my superior.  I determined, as soon as possible, to get the Star on the wire and try to express some of the thoughts that were surging through my brain in the face of this awful and unexpected occurrence.

There he lay, alone, uncared for except by such rude hands as those of the Morgue attendants.  I could not help reflecting on the strange vicissitudes of human life, and death, which levelled all distinctions between men of high and low degree.  Murtha had almost literally sprung from the streets.  His career had been one possible only in the social and political conditions of his times.  And now he had only by the narrowest chance escaped a burial in a pauper’s grave at the hands of the city which he had helped Dorgan to debauch.

Carton, too, I could see was overwhelmed.  For the moment he did not even think of how this blow to the System might affect his own chances.  It was only the pitiful wreck of a human being before us that he saw.

I was not an expert on study of wounds, such as was Kennedy, who was examining Murtha’s body with minute care, now and then muttering under his breath at the rough and careless handling it had received in its various transfers about the city.  But there were some terrible wounds and disfigurements on the body, which added even more to the horror of the case.