ness and killed himself; and there had been his mother
and a younger brother and sister. Also, there was an in~
vention of Duane's; Jurgis could not understand it clearly,
but it had to do with telegraphing, and it was a very im~
portant thing -- there were fortunes in it, millions upon
millions of dollars. And Duane had been robbed of it by
a great company, and got tangled up in lawsuits and lost
all his money. Then somebody had given him a tip
on a horse-race, and he had tried to retrieve his fortune
with another person's money, and had to run away, and
all the rest had come from that. The other asked him
what had led him to safe-breaking -- to Jurgis a wild and
appalling occupation to think about. A man he had met,
his cell-mate had replied -- one thing leads to another.
Didn't he ever wonder about his family, Jurgis asked.
Sometimes, the other answered, but not often -- he didn't
allow it. Thinking about it would make it no better.
This wasn't a world in which a man had any business
with a family; sooner or later Jurgis would find that out
also, and give up the fight and shift for himself.

Jurgis was so transparently what he pretended to be
that his cell-mate was as open with him as a child;
it was pleasant to tell him adventures, he was so full
of wonder and admiration, he was so new to the ways
of the country. Duane did not even bother to keep
back names and places -- he told all his triumphs and his
failures, his loves and his griefs. Also he introduced
Jurgis to many of the other prisoners, nearly half of whom
he knew by name. The crowd had already given Jurgis
a name -- they called him "the stinker." This was cruel,
but they meant no harm by it, and he took it with a good-
natured grin.

Our friend had caught now and then a whiff from the
sewers over which he lived, but this was the first time
that he had ever been splashed by their filth. This jail
was a Noah's ark of the city's crime -- there were
murderers, "hold-up men" and burglars, embezzlers,
counterfeiters and forgers, bigamists, "shoplifters," "con~
fidence-men," petty thieves and pickpockets, gamblers and

[[196]]

p195 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p196w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p197

v?