"I liked what you said about hardness—and pluck. I’ve been practicing away on them both—making myself tough inside. Funny how you can, isn’t it? You think at first that, because you’re soft, you’ve got to be soft; but you find out that you’re just what you like to make yourself. That’s a great line, Bob, ’_Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ._' You watch," he added, with a tremulous smile, "and you’ll see me doing it." "All right, old boy, I’ll watch, but we’ll all be doing it with you. We’re practicing, too. Jennie and the girls are regular bricks, and, of course, your mother—" He smiled again. "Good old ma! She sure is the best ever. I’d be sorrier for her than I am if I didn’t feel certain that if—that if I go she won’t wait long after me." He swung away from this aspect of his thought to a new one. "Say, Bob, do you suppose it’s a sign that God really is with me—gump as I am!—that he’s sent you to take ma and the girls off my hands—_you_ know—and make my mind easy?" They discussed those happenings which might reasonably be held to be signs of Divine good intention, after which silence fell again. The guards grunted or yawned; the cards were slapped on the table; the tricks were pulled in with the scratching of paper against wood. An hour went by; another hour, and then another. In spite of his efforts to make himself hard, Teddy felt the tension. Having accidentally touched Bob’s hand, he grasped it with a clutch like a vise. He was still clutching it when a messenger came to the door to say that the jury was about to render their verdict and the prisoner must come back into court. Bob climbed the corkscrew first. A guard followed him, then Teddy, then the other guard. It was after seven in the evening. The courtroom, relatively empty, had a sickly look, under crude electric lighting. But half of the spectators had come back, and only those officials and lawyers who were obliged to be in their places. All the reporters were there, watching for every shade in Teddy’s face and seeing more than he expressed. Bob managed to pass in front of the cage. "Remember, Teddy—hardness is the big word." "Sure thing!" Teddy whispered back. The jury filed in. The judge took his place. Teddy was ordered to stand up. He stood very straight, his hands in the pockets of his jacket. In all that met the eye he was a sturdy, stocky young man, pleasing to look at, and with no suggestion of the criminal. His face was grave with a gravity beyond that of death, but he showed no sign of nervousness. If anyone showed nervousness it was the foreman of the jury, a good-natured fish dealer, with a drooping reddish mustache, who had never expected to be in this situation. When asked if the jury had arrived at a verdict his voice trembled as he answered: "We have." "What is your verdict?" "We find the accused guilty of murder." "Of murder in the first or the second degree?" "In the first."