I believe she would have let me off, but just then her husband came in, and--well, it wasn't to be expected he would look at it any such way. So I was run in, and I got three years." "In Shoreham?" "In Shoreham! P'raps you know the place, sir?" Pippin's eyes lightened inquiringly. The stranger shook his head. "I never was in it, but I've seen some that have been--and more that ought to be. Pretty hard place, I'm told!" "It used to be!" said Pippin. "They tell tales--and there's things still that don't seem to belong, someway, to the Lord's world. Left-over barber--barberries--no! barbarisms, Elder Hadley calls 'em. That's it, barbarisms! Him and the Old Man--that's the Warden, sir--are doin' of 'em away as fast as they can, but you can't clean a ward with one pail of water. And there's old crooks that wouldn't understand; they--I dono--" Pippin shook his curly head, and was silent, seeing visions. His companion jogged him with his elbow. The story was proving interesting. "You say you found the Lord there; or the Lord found you! How was that?" "I found Him!" Pippin laughed joyously. "He didn't find me, and reason good: He never lost me. He knowed where I was all the time. I'll cut it as short as I can. The first year I was no good. I was mad, and I stayed mad: there was nobody I inclined to chum up with. There was some kind o' made up to me, but I didn't take to 'em someway. They was dirty, too. One thing I'll always lay kind to the Honey Boys, they was clean. Brought up clean, you see; learned to wash, and brush their hair, and that; mothers learned 'em. Green grass! and think o' their--Well, anyhow, I took to that like a cat to cream; I've never been dirty since, nor I can't abide dirty folks. I just grouched off by myself, and planned what I'd do when my time was up; nobody thought I was any good, and I wasn't. All I thought of was how to get out, and then get back at Chunky--he was the Dago guy I was tellin' about. I'd study over it all day long. I wouldn't kill him, I thought, just smash his face (good-lookin' guy, great on the girls, an' they on him), or break his back so he'd never walk again, or--_I'm tellin' you this because I am ashamed to tell it_, and because I want you should know what the Lord raised me up out of. I tell you I'd sit there after workin' hours, hunched up in my cheer, never speakin' to a soul, just feelin' him under my hands, feelin' his flesh go soft and his bones crunch--" Pippin stopped abruptly, flushing scarlet. "Lord, forgive me!" he said simply. "Amen!--Well?" The gray-haired man was looking expectantly at him. "Go on, young feller! You can't stop there." Pippin gave a gulp and went on.