"
"You're a profligate, Billy," said Bridge.
"I dunno what that means," said Billy; "but if it's something
I shouldn't be I probably am."
The two went to a rooming-house of which Bridge knew,
where they could get a clean room with a double bed for fifty
cents. It was rather a high price to pay, of course, but Bridge
was more or less fastidious, and he admitted to Billy that he'd
rather sleep in the clean dirt of the roadside than in the breed
of dirt one finds in an unclean bed.
At the end of the hall was a washroom, and toward this
Bridge made his way, after removing his coat and throwing it
across the foot of the bed. After he had left the room Billy
chanced to notice a folded bit of newspaper on the floor
beneath Bridge's coat. He picked it up to lay it on the little
table which answered the purpose of a dresser when a single
word caught his attention. It was a name: Schneider.
Billy unfolded the clipping and as his eyes took in the
heading a strange expression entered them--a hard, cold
gleam such as had not touched them since the day that he
abandoned the deputy sheriff in the woods midway between
Chicago and Joliet.
This is what Billy read:
Billy Byrne, sentenced to life imprisonment in Joliet
penitentiary for the murder of Schneider, the old West Side saloon
keeper, hurled himself from the train that was bearing him to
Joliet yesterday, dragging with him the deputy sheriff to whom
he was handcuffed.
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