The next time (and the last time) I talked with Clark was in the Ninth Precinct jail. He was arrested on a Saturday. On Sunday a newspaper reporter who covered the precinct telephoned me, saying that Clark wanted to see me. I did not like it. I was vexed by the fear of somehow becoming involved in his trouble. I went with reluctance. The desk sergeant, I thought, eyed me suspiciously when I asked for Clark, but perhaps it was just my nervousness, for he called another officer who, taking a key, led me through some doors and along a tier of empty cells. Clark was in the last cell on the tier and he must have heard us coming, for I found him standing expectantly. He smiled stiffly when he saw me, but waited until the policeman had gone before he spoke. “They got me,” he said. My mood was not pleasant, I’m afraid, nor talkative. I had no wish to draw him out. If he had anything to say to me, I thought, then he would damned well say it without help from me. He was still smiling stiffly. “They got me,” he said again. “So I see,” I said. “Now what?” They were holding him for a preliminary hearing on Monday, he said. Then, as if it were something which did not concern him—as if he were speaking of someone else who was altogether a stranger to him—he told me of his work for the Communists as I have related it above. I could not understand it. I stared at him, for what he was saying sounded crazy, especially to be coming in so calm and uninflected a voice. “But why?” I wanted to know. “It was my job,” he said, as if that explained it truly and entirely; as if it completely satisfied the demands of my question. “What did you send for me for? I can’t do anything for you,” I said. “Somebody’s made a fool of you. Let them look out for you.” “You got it all wrong,” he said, shaking his head slowly. “You’ve got it all wrong. You’re in jail,” I said bitingly. “But I ain’t no fool, unless doing things for a good point is one. And I don’t want nobody to look out for me.” “Well, if you did, somebody else would have to do it.” “What could they do? You want me to get them in trouble?” “You mean the Communists?” “My action group,” he said. “They can’t do nothing. They ain’t supposed to do nothing.” I stared at him with even greater intensity. “They know and they won’t even go bail for you or get you a lawyer?” My outraged credulity was as lost on him as my vexation had been. “I told you,” he said. “You mean it’s supposed to be this way? You knew that if something like this happened, your action group wouldn’t do anything?” “I ain’t going to drag nobody else in,” he said doggedly. “They shouldn’t have to be dragged in,” I said, and I think I raised my voice in exasperation. “They ought to come in.” “You wrong,” he said. “But you’re the one who’s in jail.”