The Substitute Prisoner

The Substitute Prisoner is a novel by Max Marcin. An unemployed bookkeeper is substituted for a post-office thief caught in the act and sentenced to three years in a gruesome prison. Excerpt: «Fresh as the early morning dew that hung, a gentle, swaying silver mantle above the ceaseless currents of the North River, Britz awoke and for a long time permitted his eyes to feast on the restful picture offered by the now deserted Riverside Drive. Reluctantly he withdrew his gaze from the alluring vista that spread from his window—the graveled walks, the well-kept lawns sloping down to the stream, the wide stretch of shimmering water sending slanting shafts of silver against the rocky base of the opposite Palisades, and, in the dim distance, the softly undulating Jersey hills meeting the sky line in a wavy gray thread indistinctly outlined in the clearing mist.»