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The Jacket (The Star-Rover)-Part5_JACK LONDON(1876-1916)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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devoted my last summer vacation at the Asti Vineyards. I had all

but completed the series of experiments. Was anybody else going on



with it, I wondered; and if so, with what success?

You see, the world was dead to me. No news of it filtered in. The



history of science was making fast, and I was interested in a

thousand subjects. Why, there was my theory of the hydrolysis of



casein by trypsin, which Professor Walters had been carrying out in

his laboratory. Also, Professor Schleimer had similarly been



collaborating with me in the detection of phytosterol in mixtures of

animal and vegetable fats. The work surely was going on, but with



what results? The very thought of all this activity just beyond the

prison walls and in which I could take no part, of which I was never



even to hear, was maddening. And in the meantime I lay there on my

cell floor and played games with house-flies.



And yet all was not silence in solitary. Early in my confinement I

used to hear, at irregular intervals, faint, low tappings. From



farther away I also heard fainter and lower tappings. Continually

these tappings were interrupted by the snarling of the guard. On



occasion, when the tapping went on too persistently, extra guards

were summoned, and I knew by the sounds that men were being strait-



jacketed.

The matter was easy of explanation. I had known, as every prisoner



in San Quentin knew, that the two men in solitary were Ed Morrell

and Jake Oppenheimer. And I knew that these were the two men who



tapped knuckle-talk to each other and were punished for so doing.

That the code they used was simple I had not the slightest doubt,



yet I devoted many hours to a vain effort to work it out. Heaven

knows--it had to be simple, yet I could not make head nor tail of



it. And simple it proved to be, when I learned it; and simplest of

all proved the trick they employed which had so baffled me. Not



only each day did they change the point in the alphabet where the

code initialled, but they changed it every conversation, and, often,



in the midst of a conversation.

Thus, there came a day when I caught the code at the right initial,



listened to two clear sentences of conversation, and, the next time

they talked, failed to understand a word. But that first time!



"Say--Ed--what--would-- you--give--right--now--for--brown--papers--

and--a--sack--of--Bull--Durham!" asked the one who tapped from



farther away.

I nearly cried out in my joy. Here was communication! Here was



companionship! I listened eagerly, and the nearer tapping, which I

guessed must be Ed Morrell's, replied:



"I--would--do--twenty--hours--strait--in--the--jacket--for--a--five-

-cent--sack--"



Then came the snarling interruption of the guard: "Cut that out,

Morrell!"



It may be thought by the layman that the worst has been done to men

sentenced to solitary for life, and therefore that a mere guard has



no way of compelling obedience to his order to cease tapping.

But the jacket remains. Starvation remains. Thirst remains. Man-



handling remains. Truly, a man pent in a narrow cell is very

helpless.



So the tapping ceased, and that night, when it was next resumed, I

was all at sea again. By pre-arrangement they had changed the



initial letter of the code. But I had caught the clue, and, in the

matter of several days, occurred again the same initialment I had



understood. I did not wait on courtesy.

"Hello," I tapped



"Hello, stranger," Morrell tapped back; and, from Oppenheimer,

"Welcome to our city."



They were curious to know who I was, how long I was condemned to

solitary, and why I had been so condemned. But all this I put to



the side in order first to learn their system of changing the code

initial. After I had this clear, we talked. It was a great day,



for the two lifers had become three, although they accepted me only

on probation. As they told me long after, they feared I might be a



stool placed there to work a frame-up on them. It had been done

before, to Oppenheimer, and he had paid dearly for the confidence he



reposed in Warden Atherton's tool.

To my surprise--yes, to my elation be it said--both my fellow-



prisoners knew me through my record as an incorrigible. Even into

the living grave Oppenheimer had occupied for ten years had my fame,



or notoriety, rather, penetrated.

I had much to tell them of prison happenings and of the outside






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