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The memories of "seam-squirrels" and of thin coffee and ill-smelling and greasy soup had slipped somewhat into the background of Jimmie's mind, and he lived again the sublime hour when he had confronted the court and stood for the fundamental rights of an American citizen. He wanted to have that act of daring appreciated at its true value.

They walked down the street together, and first Comrade Baskerville shivered with horror at the "seam-squirrels", and then exclaimed with delight over the conversion of "Dead-eye Mike" to Socialism, and then made merry over the singing of the Internationale in the police-station. Had she discovered a "character" in this seemingly insignificant little machinist?

If you even so much as hummed, they took you out and shut you up in a dark hole called the "cooler"! Nor could you read, for there was no light in your cell, and perpetual twilight in the central gathering place of the "tank". Apparently the only things the authorities of Leesville wished you to do were to hunt "seam-squirrels", to smoke cigarettes, to "shoot craps", and to make the acquaintance of a variety of interesting young criminals, so that when you were ready to resume your outside life you might decide whether you wanted to be a hold-up man, a safe-cracker, a forger, or a second-story operator.

"Seam-squirrels?" he would say; and he would bid you take off your coat, and engage in the popular hunting game of the institution. Jimmie remembered having heard a speaker refer to the city jail as the "Leesville Louseranch"; he had thought that a good joke at the time, but now it seemed otherwise to him.