There was a busy spot, that corridor in the city prison! Officers hurrying in and out, lawyers haggling at the desk about releases for prisoners, "fixers," hawk-eyed and rapacious, lurked about, cheap bail bondsmen coining misery, ignorance, and crime into thick nickels and thin dimes, and on the long bench by the wall sat a thin, wrinkled, poorly dressed woman of fifty holding a boy's hand in hers.
