Gridley followed the police force out into the rear corridor and down the twin rows of steel cages until they reached the last on the left. A drawn-faced figure looked up anxiously. “Got visitors, Nat,” announced the department. “Friend o’ yours! Gridley!” Caleb walked into the cell—as big-bodied, small-headed, beefy-jawed as ever—derby on the back of his head, big hands in trousers pockets, fully prepared to make hamburg of the entire penal system of the State of Vermont. “Well, bub,” roared the tanner, “what sort o’ fumi-diddles is this, anyhow?” “Mr. Gridley!” gasped the young prisoner. Then repeating the department’s question: “Where’d you come from now?” “California! Got a wire from your old-maid schoolteacher—the Hastings female—one that learned you poetry writin’, remember? Come east to see what kind o’ horseplay they’re puttin’ over on you, anyhow.” To the department: “Mike, you get air in the space you’re now occupyin’! Me’n Nat may wanner discuss poetry. And poetry’s somethin’ just natcherly outter your class.” The boy rose unsteadily. Inability to exercise had left his muscles flaccid. The tanner was a trifle shocked by the changed appearance of the young man’s face. Every spare ounce of flesh had disappeared. The skin was drawn tightly over the bones. Every turn of the jaw and depression of the cheek was sharply defined. Yet for all its leanness, it was the countenance of a young man grimly determined to find himself; not to give way to weakness and self-pity. It was growing into a strong face. The lips came together with exquisite precision. The muscles on each side the mouth were cable-heavy. Only the eyes showed his true state of mind. They were hollow and hounded. “You came—from California—to help _me_?” The boy put out a hand. Suddenly Caleb opened his gorilla arms. They encircled the lean young torso, pulled Nathan tightly to the tobacco-daubed vest. Those huge arms squeezed half the life out of him and then began belaboring him crazily on the back. “Ain’t got no license to go hoofin’ all over the dam’ planet when I might better be seein’ to things right here in Paris! Bub! Bub! They been takin’ pounds o’ flesh away from your heart. I can see it in them eyes!” “You heard how I landed here?” the boy asked gravely, evenly, a moment later, when Caleb had released him. Caleb had to release him, else Nat could not have said it. Caleb did something to his nose with a handkerchief. The noise of it suggested he would blast Nat from his confinement with one terrific explosion. “Yeah! Fodder told me, comin’ up on the ’bus. But to hell with how you got here! Point is, how we goin’ to get you out.”