The Snout
I was not so much conning the specimens in the Zoological Garden as idly basking in the agreeable morning sunshine and relishing at leisure the perfect weather. So I saw him the instant he turned the corner of the building. At first, I thought I recognized him, then I hesitated. At first he seemed to know me and to be just about to greet me; then he saw past me into the cage. His eyes bulged; his mouth opened into a long egg-shaped oval, till you might almost have said that his jaw dropped; he made an inarticulate sound, partly a grunt, partly the ghost of a howl, and collapsed in a limp heap on the gravel. I had not seen a human being since I passed the gate, some distance away. No one came when I called. So I dragged him to the grass by a bench, untied his faded, shiny cravat, took off his frayed collar and unbuttoned his soiled neckband. Then I peeled his coat off him, rolled it up, and put it under his knees as he lay on his back. I tried to find some water, but could see none. So I sat down on the bench near him. There he lay, his legs and body on the grass, his head in the dry gutter, his arms on the pebbles of the path. I was sure I knew him, but I could not recall when or where we had encountered each other before. Presently he answered to my rough and ready treatment and opened his eyes, blinking at me heavily. He drew up his arms to his shoulders and sighed.
“Queer,” he muttered, “I come here because of you and I meet you. Still I could not remember him and he had revived enough to read my face. He sat up. “Don't try to stand up!” I warned him.
He did not need the admonition, but clung to the end of the bench, his head bowed wagglingly over his arms.
“Don't you remember,” he asked thickly. “You said I had a pretty good smattering of an education on everything except Natural History and Ancient History. I'm hoping for a job in a few days, and I thought I'd put in the time and keep out of mischief brushing up. So I started on Natural History first and — ”
He broke off and glared up at me. I remembered him now. I should have recognized him the moment I saw him, for he was daily in my mind. But his luxuriant hair, his tanned skin and above all his changed expression, a sort of look of acquired cosmopolitanism, had baffled me.
“Natural History!” he repeated, in a hoarse whisper. His fingers digging in the slats of the bench he wrenched himself round to face the cage.
“Hell!” he screamed. “There it is yet!” He held on by the end iron-arm of the bench, shaking, almost sobbing. “What's wrong with you?” I queried. “What do think you see in that cage?”
“Do you see anything in that cage?” he demanded in reply.
“Certainly,” I told him.
“Then for God's sake,” he pleaded. “What do you see?”
I told him briefly.
“Good Lord,” he ejaculated. “Are we both crazy'?”
“Nothing crazy about either of us,” I assured him. “What we see in the cage is what is in the cage.”
“Is there such a critter as that, honest?” he pressed me. I gave him a pretty full account of the animal, its habits and relationships.
“Well,” he said, weakly, “I suppose you're telling the truth. If there is such a critter let's get where I can't see it.”
I helped him to his feet and assisted him to a bench altogether out of sight of that building. He put 'on his collar and knotted his cravat. While I had held it I had noticed that, through its greasy condition, it showed plainly having been a very expensive cravat. His clothes I remarked were seedy, but had been of the very best when new.
“Let's find a drinking fountain,” he suggested, “I can walk now.” We found one not far away and at no great distance from it a shaded bench facing an agreeable view. I offered him a cigarette and we smoked. I meant to let him do most of the talking.
“Do you know,” he began presently. “Things you said to me run in my head more than anything anybody ever said to me. I suppose it's because you're a sort of philosopher and student of human nature and what you say is true. For instance, you said that criminals would get off clear three times out of four, if they just kept their mouths shut, but they have to confide in some one, even against all reason. That's just the way with me now.”
“You aren't a criminal,” I interrupted him. “You lost your temper and made a fool of yourself just once. If you'd been a criminal and had done what you did, you'd have likely enough got off, because you'd have calculated how to do it. As it was you put yourself in a position where everything was against you and you had no chance. We were all sorry for you.”
“You most of all,” he amplified. “You treated me bully.”
“But we were all sorry for you,” I repeated, “and all the jury too, and the judge. You're no criminal.”
“How do you know,” he demanded defiantly, “what I have done since I got out?”
“You've grown a pretty good head of hair,” I commented.
“I've had time,” he said. “I've been all over the world and blown in ten thousand dollars.”
“And never seen — ” I began.
He interrupted me at the third word.
“Don't say it,” he shuddered. “I never had, nor heard of one. But I wasn't after caged animals while I had any money left. I didn't remember your advice and your other talk till I was broke. Now, it's just as you said, I've just got to tell you. That's the criminal in me, I suppose.”
“You're no criminal,” I repeated soothingly.
“Hell,” he snarled, “a year in the pen makes a man a criminal, if he never was before.”
“Not necessarily,” I encouraged him.
“It's pretty sure to,” he sighed. “They treated me mighty well and put me to bookkeeping, and I got my full good-conduct allowance. But I met professionals, and they never forget a man.”
“Now it don't make any difference what I did when I got out, nor what I tried to do nor how I met Rivvin, nor how he put Thwaite after me.. No, nor how Thwaite got hold of me, nor what he said to me, nor anything, right up to the very night, till after we had started.”
He looked me in the eye. His attitude became alert. I could see him warming to his narrative. In fact, when after very little rumination he began it, his early self dropped from him with his boyhood dialect and the jargon of his late associates. He was all the easy cosmopolitan telling his tale with conscious zest.
As if it had been broad day Thwaite drove the car at a terrific pace for nearly an hour. Then he stopped it while Rivvin put out every lamp. We had not met or overtaken anything, but when we started again through the moist, starless blackness it was too much for my nerves. Thwaite was as cool as if he could see. I could not so much as guess at him in front of me, but I could feel his self-confidence in every quiver of the car. It was one of those super-expensive makes which are, on any gear, at any speed, on any grade, as noiseless as a puma. Thwaite never hesitated in the gloom; he kept straight or swerved, crept or darted, whizzed or crawled for nearly an hour more. Then he turned sharp to the left and uphill. I could feel and smell the soaked, hanging boughs close above and about me, the wet foliage on them, and the deep sodden earth mold that squelched under the tires. We climbed steeply, came to a level and then backed and went forward a length or so a half dozen times, turning. Then we stopped dead. Thwaite moved things that clicked or thumped and presently said: