While the television men on the other side of the bars were fussing their equipment into position, the two convicts answered the preliminary, inevitable questions of the feature writers :

“How does it feel to be back?”

“Fine, just fine.”

“What’s the first thing you’re going to do when you get your discharge?”

“Eat a good meal.” (From Crandall.)

“Get roaring drunk.” (From Henck.)

“Careful you don’t wind up right behind bars again as a post-criminal.” (From one of the feature writers.) A good-natured laugh in which all of them, the newsmen, Chief Guard Anderson, and Crandall and Henck, participated.

“How were you treated while you were prisoners?”

“Oh, pretty good.” (From both of them, concurrent with a thoughtful glance at Anderson’s club.)

“Either of you care to tell us who you’re going to murder?”

(Silence.)

“Either of you changed your mind and decided not to commit the murder?”

(Crandall looked thoughtfully up, while Henck looked thoughtfully down.) Another general laugh, a bit more uneasy this time, Crandall and Henck not participating.

“All right, we’re set. Look this way, please,” the television announcer broke in. “And smile, men—let’s have a really big smile.”

Crandall and Henck dutifully emitted big smiles, which made three smiles, for Anderson had moved into the cheerful little group.

The two cameras shot out of the grasp of their technicians, one hovering over them, one moving restlessly before their faces, both controlled, at a distance, by the little box of switches in. the cameramen’s hands. A red bulb in the nose of one of the cameras lit up.

“Here we are, ladies and gentlemen of the television audience,” the announcer exuded in a lavish voice. “We are on board the convict ship Jean Valjean, which has just landed at the New York Spaceport. We are here to meet two men—two of the rare men who have managed to serve all of a voluntary sentence for murder and thus are legally entitled to commit one murder apiece.