Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: rays of sun slanted through a skylight. Here another convict received them pointing, without giving them a glance, to a bench upon which they sat while he turned to adjust the lens of a large camera. He wore green eye-shades instead of the visored cap; his black hair was quite long and foppishly parted; a little mou
...stache covered his upper lip; his striped jacket was rounded at the bottom and had lapels; his striped trousers were carefully creased, and his buttoned shoes were of glistening patent leather. Also he wore a white collar and a four-in-hand tie. His forehead was low beneath the shiny black bangs, and there was something venomously alert about his slight body and beady eyes. By this man and the bath-trusty few words were exchanged, and these obviously restricted to the business at hand. Between them was a barrier of caste: the photographer treated the bath-trusty with the same authority of word and manner which the latter used toward the three prisoners. And yet, through this barrier, something was constantly passing?sometimes in half-averted head, and often in sharp sidelong glance from narrowed eye?something that showed that the high standing of the one did not put him beyond peril from the other; there was not a moment when the two were not watching each other furtively. They watched each other like two hungry cats; it was as though the photographer were a cat holding a bleeding piece of meat and the other were waiting for him to slacken his guard for just a moment. One thing was plain: there was absolutely no community of interest between the two convicts; no need of guards to watch while the two were together. All of which impressed Collins vaguely, as he sat for his picture, first bare-headed, then with his hat on. After which the three followed the bath-trus...
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