And now, will you listen to it?
Will you forgive me for bringing up this memory that must be precious to you, only that you might more fully understand what I am going to say?
I don't want you to think of it as a subterfuge on my part.

It is more than that.

It is--Fingers, is it inspiration?
Listen, and tell me." And for a long time after that James Kent talked, and Fingers listened, the soul within him writhing and dragging itself back into fierce life, demanding for the first time in many years the something which it had once possessed, but which it had lost.

It was not the lazy, mysterious, silent Dirty Fingers who sat in the cell with Kent.

In him the spirit of twenty years ago had roused itself from long slumber, and the thrill of it pounded in his blood.