"
"It was probably I, but I don't remember anything about it."
"It's not likely that you would, as I see you've had some one of the
seven hundred fevers that are customary along this coast. Yours must
have been of the shouting kind, as I heard you clean through the wall,
and, once when I was listening at the keyhole, you made a noise like
the yell of a charging army."
"You don't mean to say that you've been listening at the keyhole of my
cell."
"It's exactly what I mean. You wouldn't come to see your neighbor so he
decided to come to see you. Good communications correct evil manners.
See this?"
He held up a steel pronged instrument about six inches long.
"This was once a fork, a fork for eating, large and crude, I grant you,
but a fork. It took me more than a month to steal it, that is I had to
wait for a time when I was sure that the soldier who brought my food was
so lazy or so stupid that he would not miss it. I waited another week as
an additional precaution, and after that my task was easy. If the best
watch, clock and instrument maker in the State of Maine couldn't pick
any lock with a fork it was time for him to lie on his back and die. I
picked the lock of my own door in a minute the first time by dead
reckoning, but it took me a full two minutes to open yours, although
I'll relock it in half that time when I go out.
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