Page:Upbuilders by Lincoln Steffens.djvu/208



chewing-gum. I walked into a bank and up to th’ guy in th’ monkey cage. I says I wanted work, and when he went to see de head guy, I rammed th’ gum in de end of my cane, shoved it through the cage, and swiped a twenty that stuck to th’ gum. Then I hiked out on th’ express that night.”

Where did the boy learn that trick ? In jail. That’s where the State taught him his trade, and, when he had learned a new crime, he could break out and try it. Twice he had broken jail, cleverly, boldly. Once when an officer, Roberts, tried to recapture him, Lee smashed a lantern in the man’s face and then led him a chase through a back yard where clothes-lines hung in the dark. Caught under the chin by a line, the officer turned a “flip-flop,” and the boy got away; not unscathed, however; the officer fired several shots at him, and one hit the boy in the hand.

To kill that policeman was one of the vows the boy had made to himself. “ He tried to kill me. I was only a kid, and he tried to kill me. I’m going to kill him one of these nights.

The Judge listened to these stories, noted what they meant, and he sympathized with the boys. But that isn’t all he did. He sympathized with the Law and with the policeman, too. He showed the boys just where he thought things