Moreover, we had decided to see the adventure
through. Something more than nine hundred miles, and twenty-six hours, lay
between us and Atlanta.
The elder of our two guardians was a short but wide gentleman of
forty-five, of respectable attire and aspect, as of one who had seen the
world and had formed no flattering opinion of its quality, yet had not
permitted its imperfections to overcome his native amiable tolerance. He
was prepared to take things and men easy while they came that way, but
could harden and insist upon due occasion. Human nature--those varieties
of it, at least, which are not incompatible with criminal tendencies--was
his "middle name" (as he might have phrased it), so that in his proper
social environment he was not apt to make social mistakes. This
environment, however, could not but be constituted, in the main, of
convicts either actual or potential; and there was probably no citizen,
however high his standing or spotless his ostensible record, who in this
official's estimate might not have prison gates either before him or
behind him, or both. To be able to maintain, under the shadow of
convictions so harsh, a disposition so sunny, was surely an admirable
trait of character.
His assistant in the present job was still in the morning stage of his
career; a big, red-headed, rosy-cheeked, and obtrusively brawny youth of
five and twenty.
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