“You might try putting your left foot in the right hand drawer and your right foot in the other one,” suggested Mr. Yollop.

Mr. Smilk stared.  “I’ve seen a lot of kidders in my time, but you certainly got ’em all skinned to death,” said he.

Mr. Yollop puffed reflectively for awhile, pondering the situation.  “Well, suppose you remove one foot at a time, Cassius.  As soon it is fairly well rested, put it back again and then take the other one out for a spell,—­and so on.  Half a loaf is better than no loaf at all.”

Smilk withdrew his left foot from its drawer and sighed gratefully.

“As I was sayin’,” he resumed, “if we could only put some kind of a curb on these here tender-hearted boobs—­and boobesses—­the world would be a much better place to live in.  The way it is now, nine tenths of the fellers up in Sing Sing never know when they’ll have to pack up and leave, and it’s a constant strain on the nerves, I tell you.  There seems to be a well-organized movement to interfere with the personal liberty of criminals, Mr. Poppup.  These here sentimental reformers take it upon themselves to say whether a feller shall stay in prison or not.  First, they come up there and pick out some poor helpless feller and say ’it’s a crime to keep a good-lookin’, intelligent boy like you in prison, so we’re going to get you out on parole and make an honest, upright citizen of you.  We’re going to get you a nice job’,—­and so on and so forth.  Well, before he knows it, he’s out and has to put up a bluff of workin’ for a livin’.  Course, he just has to go to stealin’ again.  It makes him sore when he thinks of the good, honest life he was leadin’ up there in the pen, with nothin’ to worry about, satisfactory hours, plenty to eat, and practically divorced from his wife without havin’ to go through the mill.  If my calculations are correct, more than fifty per cent of the crime that’s bein’ committed these days is the work of paroled convicts who depended on the law to protect and support them for a given period of time.  And does the law protect them?  It does not.  It allows a lot of pinheads to interfere with it, and what’s the answer?  A lot of poor devils are forced to go out and risk their lives tryin’ to—­”

“Just a moment, please,” interrupted Mr. Yollop.  “You are talking a trifle too fast, Cassius.  Moderate your speed a little.  Before we go any further, I would like to be set straight on one point.  Do you mean to tell me that you actually prefer being in prison?”

“Well, now, that’s a difficult question to answer,” mused Mr. Smilk.  “Sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t.  It’s sort of like being married, I suppose.  Sometimes you’re glad you’re married and sometimes you wish to God you wasn’t.  Course, I’ve only been married three or four times, and I’ve been in the pen six times, one place or another, so I guess I’m not what you’d call an unbiased witness.  I seem to have a leanin’ toward jail,—­about three to one in favor of jail, you might say, with the odds likely to be increased pretty shortly if all goes well.  Do you mind if I change drawers?”