Эл Дженнингс - Through the Shadows with O'Henry

"I feel like a bride getting a trousseau. I'm so particular about the sendoff this paternal roof is going to give me."

Porter's old suit had been given away to some other out-going convict.

"Use your influence, colonel, and get me a good-looking business suit. I'll leave it to your judgment, but pick me out a rich brown."

The superintendents of all the shops knew the secretary of the steward's office. They were all fond of the nimble-tongued, amiable dignity that was Bill Porter's. Everyone wanted to make him a present as he was leaving.

"Porter goin* on his honeymoon? Sure pick out the best we've got. Harry Ogle was the outside superintendent of the State shop. He led me over to the storeroom and pulled down bolt after bolt of fine wool cloth.

The regulation convict suit was made of some cotton mixture. The government paid the state $25 to clothe its outgoing prisoners. The raiment was worth about $4.50.

"Here's the finest piece of brown English worsted in the State of Ohio." We decided on that and Porter came over for a fitting. The men laughed as they measured him.

"Want the seams runnin' crostwise just to be otherwise," they twitted. "If you had the pockets turned upside down, they'd never git wise to where this hand- some suit come from. And you ain't got nuthin' to put in the pockets, anyways, and you'd be sure not to come back as a sneak thief."

It would have hurt Porter's pride at another time, but he was so concerned with the multitude of small preparations he laughed and bandied back the crude jests of the prison tailors. In return they fashioned a suit that was without fault, even to Porter's fastidious taste.

On the night of July 23—the next morning he was to leave—Porter smuggled over his outfit.

"Gentlemen, whenever a great drama is to be staged, it is customary to give a dress rehearsal. Let the curtain up."

Bill tried on the suit. He had a black Katy hat like the derby worn today and a pair of shoes made by a life termer. Prison shoes squeak. They can be heard a mile off. The cons used to say it was due on purpose to prevent a silent getaway. Porter's were no exception.

"I'll make quite a noise in the world, colonel. I'm bringing my own brass band along."

"You're bound to make a noise there, Bill."

"Here, try some of this hair tonic on them." Billy got down Porter's remedy. "It can take the kick out of anything."

Flippant, meaningless banter—we spent the precious hours flipping it back and forth. It was like the empty foam tossed from great waves against an impregnable rock. The waves themselves come with a mighty rush, but at the base of the crag they ebb as though their force were suddenly spent.

Thoughts and a hundred anxious questions were pushing upward in a surge of emotions, but at the tongue they failed and we dashed out this froth. We talked of everything but our thoughts.

Even the warden was nervous when Porter came into the office for his discharge.

"I worked them all night, colonel," Porter pointed to the shoes. "Their eloquence is irrepressible."

"If you looked any better, Bill, the ladies would kidnap you for a Beau Brummel."

"I shall not be taken into captivity again on any charge."

Porter's face was slightly lined. He looked older for his 39 months in prison, but even so, his was a head and a bearing to attract attention anywhere. There was about him now an attitude of confidence, or self-sufficiency, of dignity. He looked more like a well-educated, cultured business man than like an ex-convict.

There were visitors in the outer office. The warden stepped outside, telling me to give Bill his discharge papers. As soon as we were alone the intense strain became unbearable. I wanted to cram everything into those last moments. I wanted to say: "Good luck—God bless you—Go to hell."

But neither of us spoke. Bill went over to the window and I sat down to the desk. For 10 minutes he stood there. Suddenly it occurred to me that he was taking this parting in a very indifferent manner.

"Bill," my voice was husky with resentment and he turned quickly; "won't you be outside soon enough? Can't you look this way for the last few minutes we've got?"

The coaxing smile on his lips, he put out his strong, short hand to me. "Al, here's a book, I sent to town for it for you." It was a copy of "Omar Khayyam."

I handed him the discharge and his $5. Porter had at least $60 or $70—the proceeds from his last story. He took the '$5.

"Here, colonel, give this to Billy—he can buy alcohol for his locomotor ataxia."

That was all. He went toward the door and then he came back the old drollery in his eye.

"I'll meet you in New York, colonel. You might beat the brakes there before me. I'll be on the watch. Goodby, Al."

Porter's voice lapsed into a low whisper at the end. He went to the door, and, without looking back, went out. I felt as though something young and bonny something lovable and magnetic—was gone forever.

"No leaves on the calendar, Al!" Billy Raidler scratched off the last number, shook his head and tore off the page. He looked over at me through a gloom of silence.

"Another day gone into night."

Egotism is the bridge whereon men have crawled upward from the jungle. There is no limit to its reaches. It spans even the heavens, paving the way to gods and angels, whose sole delight is to minister to men. It is not stopped even at the grave, but flings a tight rope beyond, and on this hair line Man marches to Immortality. Without Egotism, the human animal never would have developed.

Across one chasm it does not stretch—the chasm between the World and Prison. And in this exile the convict becomes spiritless and hopeless. He expects nothing, for he has lost the self-esteem that buoys trust.

When Bill Porter went down the walk to the Open Road in his squeaky shoes and the arrogant yellow gloves Steve Bussel had given him, neither Billy Raidler nor I ever expected to catch again an echo from those familiar footsteps. He had sauntered out of our lives. We were glad for the sunny companionship he had given us when he was one with ourselves.

We talked about him now and then, Billy always brought up the conversation.

"I need some tobacco a special brand think I'll drop a line to Bill Porter and ask him to send it on." Or again, it was his hair that worried him. "Fool that

I was I forgot to get that remedy from Bill. I'm like to be bald before he sends his address. Say, Al, didn't he promise to give you a lift on the story what about it?"

But the weeks went by and no word came. A month and a half to the day Billy sent a runner to the warden's office with a letter postmarked "Pittsburgh." The runner brought a note from Raidler: "Al, send me back that letter. My locomotor ataxia is itchin' to see what Bill's got to say. Yours in great peril, Billy."

Here is the first letter Bill Porter—he had already taken the name of O. Henry—had sent to me at the Ohio penitentiary. He had not forgotten us and he had already made good :

"Dear Jennings: I have intended to write to you and Billy every week since I left, but kept postponing it because I expected to move on to Washington (sounds like Stonewall Jackson talk, doesn't it?) almost any time. I am very comfortably situated here, but expect to leave in a couple of weeks, anyhow.

"I have been doing quite a deal of business with the editors since I got down to work and have made more than I could at any other business. I want to say that Pittsburgh is the 'low-downedest' hole on the surface of the earth. The people here are the most ignorant, ill-bred, contemptible, boorish, degraded, insulting, sordid, vile, foul-mouthed, indecent, profane, drunken, dirty, mean, depraved curs that I ever imagined could exist. Columbus people are models of chivalry compared with them. I shall linger here no longer than necessary.