Jack's restless motions were the best proof of his theory. As his story began he had sat quietly in the little mission-parlor, but now he was walking hastily up and down, stopping a moment at some special point, then starting again--a tall, lean figure, with characteristic New England face, very thin now, and with a hectic flush on the sunken cheeks, but shrewd and kindly--the narrow chin and high cheek-bones, prominent nose and soft thin hair, seeming to belong wholly to the type of New England villager, and by no possibility to the rough and desperate native of the Fourth Ward. Born in his own place on some quiet inland farm, he would have turned peddler, or, nearer the sea, have chosen that for his vocation; but it was impossible to look upon him as an ex-convict or to do away with the impression of respectability which seems part of the New England birthright. "At last," he went on, "things changed. A new chaplain came, for one thing, an' I'd got so quiet they changed my cell an' put me on the other side the buildin'. I went on in a kind of dream. I worked like two, an' they begun to take notice of me. The chaplain 'd come an' talk to me, an' he worked over me well; but he might as well have talked to the dead. But my very keepin' still made him think he'd half got me, an' he'd fetch books an' papers; an' things got easier that way. I read an' studied: I was bound now to know something, an' I worked at that hard as I did at everything else; an' there come a time when I was recommended for pardon, an' five years an' a day after I went in he brought it to me. I couldn't speak: I could have gone on my knees to him, an' he had sense to know how I felt. "'Jack,' he said, 'you're very young yet, an' now is your chance. Try to be an honest man an' pray for help. I wish I knew if you will pray.' "'You'd make me if any one could,' I says, 'but I ain't sure of the use of it yet: I wish I was.' "He just looked at me sorrowful, for I hadn't said even that much before, an' I went off. "An' I did mean to keep straight. I'd had enough of prison; but when I went round askin' for work, not a soul would have me. A jail-bird!--well, they thought not. I grew mad ag'in, an' yet I wouldn't take to the river, for, somehow, I'd lost my courage. Then I met an old pal, an' he took me round to Micky's saloon. The barkeeper'd just been stuck in a fight. I'd been a profitable one for Micky, an' maybe he thought, beginnin' there, I'd go back to the river once more. An' there I was three years, an' fights nigh every night of the year. I could stop 'em when no one else could, for I was always sober.