The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway

detective. “He killed this Italian with his bow and arrow.”

“Cut it out,” said the detective.

“Sergeant,” the little man said. “I did not kill this Italian. I would not kill an Italian. I do not know an Italian.”

“Write it down and use it against him,” the prisoner on the front seat said. “Everything he says will be used against him. He did not kill this Italian.”

“Sergeant,” asked the little man, “who did kill this Italian?”

“You did,” said the detective.

“Sergeant,” said the little man. “That is a falsehood. I did not kill this Italian. I refuse to repeat it. I did not kill this Italian.”

“Everything he says must be used against him,” said the other prisoner. “Sergeant, why did you kill this Italian?”

“It was an error, Sergeant,” the little prisoner said. “It was a grave error. You should never have killed this Italian.”

“Or that Italian,” the other prisoner said.

“Shut to hell up the both of you,” said the sergeant. “They’re dope heads,” he said to my father. “They’re crazy as bed bugs.”

“Bed bugs?” said the little man, his voice rising. “There are no bed bugs on me, Sergeant.”

“He comes from a long line of English earls,” said the other prisoner. “Ask the senator there,” he nodded at my father.

“Ask the little man there,” said the first prisoner. “He’s just George Washington’s age. He cannot tell a lie.”

“Speak up, boy,” the big prisoner stared at me.

“Cut it out,” the guard said.

“Yes, Sergeant,” said the little prisoner. “Make him cut it out. He’s got no right to bring in the little lad.”

“I was a boy myself once,” the big prisoner said.

“Shut your goddam mouth,” the guard said.

“That’s right, Sergeant,” began the little prisoner.

“Shut your goddam mouth.” The little prisoner winked at me.

“Maybe we better go back to the other car,” my father said to me. “See you later,” he said to the two detectives.

“Sure. See you at lunch.” The other detective nodded. The little prisoner winked at us. He watched us go down the aisle. The other prisoner was looking out of the window. We walked back through the smoker to our seats in the other car.

“Well, Jimmy, what do you make of that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Neither do I,” said my father.

At lunch at Cadillac we were sitting at the counter before they came in and they sat apart at a table. It was a good lunch. We ate chicken pot pie and I drank a glass of milk and ate a piece of blueberry pie with ice cream. The lunch room was crowded. Looking out the open door you could see the train. I sat on my stool at the lunch counter and watched the four of them eating together. The two prisoners ate with their left hands and the detectives with their right hands. When the detectives wanted to cut up their meat they used the fork in their left hand and that pulled the prisoner’s right hand toward them. Both the hands that were fastened together were on the table. I watched the little prisoner eating and he, without seeming to do it purposefully, made it very uncomfortable for the sergeant. He would jerk without seeming to know it and he held his hand so the sergeant’s left hand was always being pulled. The other two ate as comfortably as they could. They were not as interesting to watch anyway.

“Why don’t you take them off while we eat?” the little man said to the sergeant. The sergeant did not say anything. He was reaching for his coffee and as he picked it up the little man jerked and he spilled it. Without looking toward the little man the sergeant jerked out with his arm and the steel cuffs yanked the little man’s wrist and the sergeant’s wrist hit the little man in the face.

“Son of a bitch,” the little man said. His lip was cut and he sucked it.

“Who?” asked the sergeant.

“Not you,” said the little man. “Not you with me chained to you. Certainly not.”

The sergeant moved his wrist under the table and looked at the little man’s face.

“What do you say?”

“Not a thing,” said the little man. The sergeant looked at his face and then reached for his coffee again with his handcuffed hand. The little man’s right hand was pulled out across the table as the sergeant reached. The sergeant lifted the coffee cup and as he raised it to drink it it jerked out of his hand and the coffee spilled all over everything. The sergeant brought the handcuffs up into the little man’s face twice without looking at him. The little man’s face was bloody and he sucked his lip and looked at the table.

“You got enough?”

“Yes,” said the little man. “I’ve got plenty.”

“You feel quieter now?”

“Very quiet,” said the little man. “How do you feel?”

“Wipe your face off,” said the sergeant. “Your mouth is bloody.”

We saw them get on the train two at a time and we got on too and went to our seats. The other detective, not the one they called Sergeant but the one handcuffed to the big prisoner, had not taken any notice of what happened at the table. He had watched it but he had not seemed to notice it. The big prisoner had not said anything but had watched everything.

There were cinders in the plush of our seat in the train and my father brushed the seat with a newspaper. The train started and I looked out the open window and tried to see Cadillac but you could not see much, only the lake, and factories and a fine smooth road along near the tracks. There were a lot of sawdust piles along the lake shore.

“Don’t put your head out, Jimmy,” my father said. I sat down. There was nothing much to see anyway.

“That is the town Al Moegast came from,” my father said.

“Oh,” I said.

“Did you see what happened at the table?” my father asked.

“Yes.”

“Did you see everything?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you think the little one made that trouble for?”

“I guess he wanted to make it uncomfortable so they would take the handcuffs off.”

“Did you see anything else?”

“I saw him get hit three times in the face.”

“Where did you watch when he hit him?”

“I watched his face. I watched the sergeant hit him.”

“Well,” my father said. “While the sergeant hit him in the face with the handcuff on his right hand he picked up a steel-bladed knife off the table with his left hand and put it in his pocket.”

“I didn’t see.”

“No,” my father said. “Every man has two hands, Jimmy. At least to start with. You ought to watch both of them if you’re going to see things.”

“What did the other two do?” I asked. My father laughed.

“I didn’t watch them,” he said.

We sat there in the train after lunch and I looked out of the window and watched the country. It did not mean so much now because there was so much else going on and I had seen a lot of country but I did not want to suggest that we go up into the smoker until my father said to. He was reading and I guess my restlessness disturbed him.