Capital punishment -- Fiction; Chicago (Ill.) -- Fiction; Criminals -- Fiction; Prisoners -- Fiction
“Well, in the mornin’ the marshal came in and brought me some breakfast.
Then he took me up to the office again. He waited a few minutes till the
judge come, and then they commenced firin’ questions at me. They asked
me how I got from St. Louis to where I was, That kind of puzzled me, for
I didn’t exactly know where I was. I answered it the best I could; but I
know I didn’t get it right. They told me I hadn’t got over lyin’ and I’d
have to be shut up some more. Then they asked me what public buildin’s
there was in St. Louis. I made a guess and told ‘em the court-house and
state-house. They laughed at this, and said St. Louis wa’n’t the capital
of Missouri. And of course I didn’t argue with ‘em about that. Then they
wanted to know how I come there and I said I walked. And they wanted to
know what places I come through and I couldn’t tell ‘em. Then they asked
me where I had walked, and I couldn’t tell ‘em that; and they asked me
how far I’d walked, and I told ‘em not very far, and they laughed at my
clothes and shoes and said they was ‘most wore out, and they didn’t
believe it, and told me again that they thought I was lyin’ and I’d have
to stay there till I learnt how to tell the truth. Then I got mad and
said I hadn’t done nothin’ and they hadn’t any right to keep me, and I
wouldn’t answer any more questions; that they didn’t believe anything I
said anyhow and it wa’n’t any use, and to go ahead and do what they
pleased with me.
“Then the marshal went to his desk and got a lot of photographs and
hand-bills tellin’ about murderers and robbers and burglars and
pickpockets and ever’thing else, that was sent to him from all over the
country, and he took ‘em and looked ‘em all over and then looked at me.
Then he sorted out a dozen or so and stared at me more particular than
before. I seen what he had in his hand; I seen one of ‘em was my
picture; only I was smooth-faced and now my whiskers had got long. He
made me take off my clothes and looked me over careful, and found where
I had broke my leg the time that I caught my foot between the rails when
I thought I was goin’ to be run over. You remember the time? I wish now
I had. Then he let me put on my clothes, and he went over all the
descriptions just as careful as he could, and he found that the
hand-bill told about a broken leg; then he looked at my face again, and
then he asked me when I’d shaved last, and I told him I never shaved.
Then he wanted to know how tall I was, and I told him I didn’t know, so
he measured me by standin’ me up ‘gainst the wall and markin’ the place.
I tried to scrooch down as much as I could without him noticin’ it; but
he said it was just ‘bout what the hand-bill had it. Then he asked me
how much I weighed, and I told him I hadn’t been weighed for years. So
he called someone to help him, and they put some han’cuffs on one arm
and fastened the other to the marshal and took me over to a store, and
made me stand on the scales till I got weighed. He said I weighed just a
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account