The jailer reappeared later, and finding Johnny sitting on the edge of
the cot with his tousled head between his two palms, scowling moodily
at his feet, advised him not unkindly to buck up.
Without moving, Johnny told him to get somewhere out of there.
"Your girl's father is here and wants to talk to you," the jailer
informed him, overlooking the snub.
"Tell him to go to hell," Johnny expanded his invitation. "If you
bring him up here I'll kick him down-stairs. And that goes, too. Now,
get out of here before I--"
"Aw, say, you ain't in any position to get flossy. Look where you
are," the jailer reminded him good-naturedly as he closed the door.
He must have repeated Johnny's words verbatim, for Sudden did not
insist upon the interview, and no one else came near him. At noon the
jailer brought him a note from Mary V, along with his lunch, but Johnny
had no heart for either. He had just finished reading the front-page
account of his exploits, and his mood was blacker than ever.
No man likes to see his private affairs garbled and exaggerated and
dished to the public with the sauce of a heartless reporter's wit. The
headlines themselves struck his young dignity a deadly blow: