------------------------------------------------------------------------
Do funny things happen in the Tombs? Lord bless you, yes! Why, you have only to visit it to meet the prince of humorists. Come! He will be at the door to meet you; in fact he is “laying” for you, and will show you through the entire institution and out again—which is not a detail. He is affable to a degree, and you would be vastly amused if, like us, you were on the “inside.” But you will probably listen seriously; and although you will not lose a word of his remarks, you will lose all their exquisite humor. It is Old John who has the fun all to himself, for he is a wag in his way, and combines business with pleasure. He is a true story-teller. How I envy him his imagination! What tales I would tell if it were mine! I could—yes, I would write several novels and do five-act plays, dozens of them. Old John could easily be a poet or a writer. He certainly is an actor. No tragedian who I have ever heard can put such horror into his voice. His sepulchral tones, with just the proper amount of tremolo in them, would make the fortune of any Thespian. Of course it is impossible for type to reproduce it.
Old John shows you through the main building, the Women’s Prison and Boys’ Prison, together with the New Prison, the Ten-Day House, the Hospital, Kitchen, _et al._ He romances with the ardor of a born raconteur; he knows you will pay him something, but were that not so, I believe he would do it for the love of his art.
“Do you see that man? He’s in for m-u-r-d-e-r!” You shudder and turn away, saying “poor fellow” perhaps, and the sweet girl you are escorting gets a little closer to your strong right arm; and immediately you are vastly interested in this subject, and determined to thoroughly discuss, to exhaust the topic. And yet the unfortunate man may have committed no more heinous crime than the theft of a door mat, or that equally felonious one of peddling clams without a license. Yet I am sure you would readily condone this departure from the exact truth, even were you aware of it. Old John selects the crime to fit the physiognomy of his subject and enjoys your curiosity immensely, but he never smiles. A neat little gloved hand may have slipped into yours, or more likely you have appropriated it—I have known it to be done—and to prolong the moment you ask, “Where is Molineux?” The question is not altogether an unfamiliar one; it has been asked so often that Old John has given it very considerable thought; and in his answer he rises to a high dramatic effect. “I dasn’t show you!” he quavers. “I dasn’t even go near where he is my own self”—each tone is a triumph of horror, the descending cadence drives the blood back into your heart, and that pretty girl—bless her!—imagines a Molineux eight feet tall, who eats raw meat, and can neither read nor write. He winks at me if I am standing by and overhear. How does he keep from laughing?
