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 what I know,” he repeated, chuckling raspingly. “Ho-ho-ho, me copper fer what I know!”

What he knew, what he had gained in some mysterious way, was this:

Two mornings after 9009’s fight, and while he was in the dungeon, Jimmy Carroll suddenly had refused to work.

He had been taken to the office of the captain of the yard. And there, quietly, stubbornly, he had again refused to work.

They had taken him, then, to the whipping-post in the chapel.

“Put your hands up to the ring,” said the captain, pointing to the ring, stapled into the post a little more than man-height, to which the hands of the victim were manacled during the flogging.

“I won’t,” said the little black-faced man; “I’m sick; I won’t work; and I won’t be flogged.”

“Put up your hands,” said the captain.

“I won’t; I’m sick and I won’t be flogged.”

“Put up your hands,” said the captain, picking up the cat.