Explore "The Problem of Cell 13" by Jacques Futrelle on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
When the fifth day of The Thinking Machine's imprisonment rolled around the warden was wearing a hunted look. He was anxious for the end of the thing. He could not help but feel that his distinguished prisoner had been amusing himself. And if this were so, The Thinking Machine had lost none of his sense of humor. For on this fifth day he flung down another linen note to the outside guard, bearing the words: "Only two days more. " Also he flung down half a dollar.
Now the warden knew -- he _knew_ -- that the man in Cell 13 didn't have any half dollars -- he _couldn't_ have any half dollars, no more than he could have pen and ink and linen, and yet he did have them. It was a condition, not a theory; that is one reason why the warden was wearing a hunted look.