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Three days later I got the registered letter from Sadie Burke. It read:

Dear Jack:

Just so you won’t think I am going to welch on what I said I would do I am enclosing the statement I said I would make. I have got it witnessed and notarized and nailed down as tight as you can nail anything down and you can do anything with it you want for it is yours. I mean this. It is your baby, just like I said.

As for me I am getting out of here. I don’t mean just getting out of this cross between an old folks’ home and a booby-hatch, but out of this town and out of this state. I can’t stand it round here and I’m pulling out. I’ll be gone a long way and I’ll be gone a long time and maybe somewhere the climate will be better. But my cousin (Mrs. Sill Larkin, 2331 Rousseau Ave.) who is the nearest thing to a relative I got will have some kind of address for me sometime, and if you ever want to contact me just write me care of her. Wherever I am I’ll do what you say. I’ll come if you say come. I don’t want you thinking I am going to welch. I don’t care who knows anything. I’ll do anything you say about that piece of business.

But if you take my advice about that piece of business you will let it drop. This is not because I love Duffy. I hope you will give him an earful and let him wet his pants. But my advice is to let it drop. First, you cannot do anything in law. Second, if you use it politically the best you can get will be to keep Duffy from being re-elected, and you know as well as I do he will never get nominated even. The boys will never nominate him for they know he is a dummy even by their standards. He was just something the Boss kept around. Springing this stuff won’t hurt the gang any. I will just give them an excuse to get rid of Duffy. If you want to get the gang you got to let them dig their own grave like they sure will now the Boss is gone. But third, it is sure going to be rough on that Stanton dame if you break this stuff. She may be so noble and high-toned like you said that she will want you to do it, but you are a sap if you do. She has maybe had plenty to put up with already in her way, and you would be a sap to crucify her just because you got some high-faluting idea you are an Eagle Scout and she is Joan of Arc. You would be a sap to tell her even. Unless you are so blabber mouthed you have done it already. Like you maybe have. I am not going on to say she is my best friend but she has had her troubles like I said and you might give her a break.

Remember I am not welching. I am just giving you my advice.

Keep your tail over the dashboard.

Sincerely yours,

SADIE BURKE

I read through Sadie’s statement. It said everything there was to say, and each page was signed and witnessed. Then I folded up. It was no good to me. Not because of the advice which Sadie had given me. Her letter made sense, all right. That is, the part about Duffy and the gang. But something had happened. To hell with them all, I thought. I was sick of it all.

I looked down at the letter again. So Sadie had called me an Eagle Scout. But that wasn’t news, either. I had called myself worse names than that the night after I had seen Duffy and was walking down the street under the stars. But it touched the sore place and made it throb. It throbbed the worse because I knew that it wasn’t a secret sore place. Sadie had known about it. She had seen through me. She had read me like a book.

There was only one wry piece of consolation in the thought. At least, I had not had to wait for her to read me. I had read myself to myself that night walking down the street, full of beans and being an Eagle Scout, when the yellow, acid taste had all at once crawled up to the back of my mouth.

What had I read? I had read this: When I found out about Duffy’s killing the Boss and Adam I had felt clean and pure, and when I kicked Duffy around I felt like a million because I thought it let me out. Duffy was the villain and I was the avenging hero. I had