"Among others, I know Mr. McSheen," and as I saw his countenance fall, I added, "and he is enough for the present." I looked him sternly in the eye. He got up out of his seat and actually walked across the room, opened a cupboard and took out a key, then rang a bell. "Why didn't you say you were a friend of his?" he asked surlily. "A friend of Mr. McSheen can see any one he wants here." I have discovered that civility will answer with nine-tenths or even nineteen-twentieths of the world, but there is a class of intractable brutes who yield only to force and who are influenced only by fear, and of them was this sodden ruffian. He led the way now subserviently enough, growling from time to time some explanation, which I took to be his method of apologizing. When, after going through a number of corridors, which were fairly clean and well ventilated, we came at length to the ward where my unfortunate client was confined, the atmosphere was wholly different: hot and fetid and intolerable. The air struck me like a blast from some infernal region, and behind the grating which shut off the miscreants within from even the modified freedom of the outer court was a mass of humanity of all ages, foul enough in appearance to have come from hell. At the call of the turnkey, there was some interest manifested in their evil faces and some of them shouted back, repeating the name of Jim Woodson; some half derisively, others with more kindliness. At length, out of the mob emerged poor Jeams, but, like Lucifer, Oh, how changed! His head was bandaged with an old cloth, soiled and stained; his mien was dejected, and his face was swollen and bruised. At sight of me, however, he suddenly gave a cry, and springing forward tried to thrust his hands through the bars of the grating to grasp mine. "Lord, God!" he exclaimed. "If it ain't de Captain. Glory be to God! Marse Hen, I knowed you'd come, if you jes' heard 'bout me. Git me out of dis, fur de Lord's sake. Dis is de wuss place I ever has been in in my life. Dey done beat me up and put handcuffs on me, and chain me, and fling me in de patrol-wagon, and lock me up and sweat me, and put me through the third degree, till I thought if de Lord didn't take mercy 'pon me, I would be gone for sho. Can't you git me out o' dis right away?" I explained the impossibility of doing this immediately, but assured him that he would soon be gotten out and that I would look after his case and see that he got justice. "Yes, sir, that is what I want--jestice--I don't ax nothin' but jestice." "How did you get here?" I demanded. And even in his misery, I could not help being amused to see his countenance fall. "Dey fetched me here in de patrol-wagon," he said evasively. "I know that. I mean, for what?" "Well, dey say, Captain, dat I wus desorderly an' drunk, but you know I don' drink nothin'."