Larry swiftly responded in
kind, for from the moment he had pulled the mask of being a fool from
the painter and shown him to be a real artist, he had felt drawn
toward this impecunious swashbuckler of the arts. So he now repeated
the business motives which he had presented to Barney and Old Jimmie.
As Larry talked he became more spontaneous, and after a time he was
telling of the effect upon him of seeing various shrewd men locked up
and unexercised in prison. And presently his reminiscence settled upon
one prison acquaintance: a man past middle age, clever in his
generation, who had already done some fifteen years of a long
sentence. He was, said Larry, grim and he rarely spoke; but a close,
wordless friendship had developed between them. Only once, in an
unusually relaxed mood, had the old convict spoken of himself, but
what he had then said had had a greater part in rousing Larry to his
new decision than the words of any other man.
"It was a queer story Joe let out," continued Larry. "Before he was
sent away he had a kid, just a baby whose mother was dead. He told me
he wanted to have his kid brought up without ever knowing anything
about the kind of people he knew and the kind of life he'd lived. He
wanted it to grow up among decent people. He had money put away and he
had an old friend, a pal, that he'd trust with anything.
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