Pippin; A Wandering Flame

PIPPIN SAYS GOOD-BY THE chaplain seemed to be waiting for some one. He was sitting in his office, as usual at this hour of the morning the little bare office in a corner of Shoreham State Prison, with its worn desk and stool, its chair facing the window (what tales that chair could tell, if it had power of speech!), its piles of reports and pamphlets, its bookshelf within arm's reach of the desk. (Bible, Concordance, Shakespeare, the "Life of John Howard," Pickwick, the "Golden Treasury"; these, thumbed and shabby, jostled the latest works on prison reform and criminology. An expressive bookshelf, as all bookshelves are.) One would not have picked out Lawrence Hadley for a prison chaplain; if chaplain at all, he surely belonged in the army. Look, bearing, voice—that clear ringing voice we remember so well—all bespoke the soldier; and a soldier he was, not only because of his service in the Philippines—he was in the army till his health broke down—but because he was born one. As I said, he seemed to be waiting for some one. His eyes were watching the yard, taking note of each figure that came and went, seeing that old Pete was walking lame, that French Bill was drooping and poking his head forward, a bad sign with him; that Mike was whistling, a good sign always; but while his eyes looked, his ears listened; and now, when it seemed that he had been listening a long time, came the familiar knock. "Ah!" The chaplain's chair, which had been tilted back on two legs for meditation, came down on four for action. "Come in