Page:Frank Packard - Greater Love Hath No Man.djvu/142

 dead and tell somebody else what I have thought of them—does 'em a hanged-sight more good, what?"

Warden Rand laughed good-naturedly.

"Well," he said, "I am not going to argue it. It's a brand of philosophy that Number Seven-seventy-seven, at least, ought to appreciate for the next few days, seeing that he's on the right side of your mental ledger." Warden Rand paused, and his eyes, grown serious, held Doctor Kreelmar's for a moment. "I've official strings, on my tongue that you haven't on yours, Kreelmar," he said significantly; "but I'm as much interested in the man as you are, understand? I leave it to you to pull him around in the best shape you can."

"Hum!" said Doctor Kreelmar eloquently, as he turned toward the door. "That's all right as far as it goes—but it isn't medicine that man needs."

"Perhaps not," admitted the warden. "But what else can you do for him?"

"What else!" repeated the little doctor with a grunt, as he walked out. "I don't know, do I? If I did, he'd be a free man."

Doctor Kreelmar passed down the hall into the penitentiary proper through the steel gates opened for him by a guard, turned to his left and kept on along a corridor to where, at the extreme end, it opened into the prison infirmary. As he walked, his small, round face was fiercely puckered, and he plucked continuously at a diminutive black goatee with the knuckle of his thumb and the end of his forefinger.

"Marvellous physique!" he muttered. "Marvellous! Fine fellow. Seen lots of 'em, lots of 'em—know 'em when I see 'em. Murderer—poppycock! Something