"It was no use. I gave up parsons and tried the river-front again. I didn't get over one meal a day, and my head ached all the time. I heard of a job at One Hundred and Sixty-ninth Street, carrying lumber. I got a nickel for holding a horse, and went up. It was a gang of niggers. They got a dollar a day. The boss was a nigger, too, and didn't want cheap white trash. I almost went down on my knees to him, and finally he said I might come the next day. I slept in a field under a tree without anything to eat that night, and started in at seven the next morning. The thermometer went up to ninety-six, and we worked without stopping. I had to lug one end of a big stick, with a nigger under the other end, one hundred yards, then go back and get another. I got so I didn't know what I was doing. At eleven o'clock I fainted, and then I was sick, dreadfully sick. At three the boss nigger kicked me and said I had to stop faking or I wouldn't get paid, and so I got up and lugged until six. But I was so ill I knew it was no use. I couldn't do that kind of work. "It was an awfully hot night. I got off the 'L' at Thirty-fourth Street and walked through to the avenue. When I got to the Waldorf I stopped and looked in the windows. There were men and women in there, and flowers and everything to eat--just what I could eat if I chose. And I had been working with niggers, Judge, all day long until I fainted, heaving timber. I just stood and waited, and when a chance came to snatch a roll of bills I took it. They couldn't catch me. I was good for ten of 'em, Judge. "After that it was easy. I met some of the fellows that had served time with me and got back into the old life. Judge, it's no use. I don't blame you for what you are going to do, nor I don't blame the jury. Anyone could see through the bluff I put up. I'm guilty. I'm a jailbird, I say. I'm done. Only I've had no chance, Judge. Give me another; let me go back to the farm. I'll go, I swear I will! It'll kill me to go to prison. I'm a human being. God meant me to live out of doors, and I've spent half of my life inside stone walls. Let me go back to the country. I'll go, Judge. I'm a human being. Give me one more chance." There was no sound when the prisoner stopped speaking. The judge did not reply for a full minute. His face wore its habitual look of sadness. Then he spoke in a very low tone, but one which was distinctly audible in the silence of the court-room.