CHAPTER XIV
When, at the conclusion of my first ten days’ term in the jacket, I was brought back to consciousness by Doctor Jackson’s thumb pressing open an eyelid, I opened both eyes and smiled up into the face of Warden Atherton.
“Too cussed to live and too mean to die,” was his comment.
“The ten days are up, Warden,” I whispered.
“Well, we’re going to unlace you,” he growled.
“It is not that,” I said. “You observed my smile. You remember we had a little wager. Don’t bother to unlace me first. Just give the Bull Durham and cigarette papers to Morrell and Oppenheimer. And for full measure here’s another smile.”
“Oh, I know your kind, Standing,” the Warden lectured. “But it won’t get you anything. If I don’t break you, you’ll break all strait-jacket records.”
“He’s broken them alrea
