事实上，我几乎花了一整个晚上才锯完一半，看到所有的这些东西我很满意。这太棒了，我用绿色油灰把切开的部分弄平，然后把它漆成黑色，现在“防逃跑”的标语正在为我工作。
我不是唯一一个兴奋的人。当Eagen冒险递给我锯片的时候，我已经告诉他我的理论了。第二天早晨我们从山坡往下走时，他几乎无法控制自己。“到底发生了什么事？“他低声道说，“能锯断码？”
“是的，就像硬纸板一样。我已经锯开了3/4。”
即使如此，他还是不相信。
我提醒他，离开牢房和离开监狱完全是两码事。我还得从上层楼房到下层楼房，再走到通往食堂的15英尺长的走廊。从那里，我还得下去到食堂的地窖，通过地窖到院子里去。我必须在四个重要的交叉路口穿过七扇门；三扇隐蔽的木门，三扇有栅栏的大门，最后，还有地下室里那扇通向院子的大金属门。
但即使如此，狱卒们的过度自信也会对我有帮助。七扇门，但是没有任何一个守卫。
随着旧动力房的关闭，Eagen在管道工厂工作更长时间，这样就可以获得更多的材料给我制作撬锁器和钥匙。最初的两个木门安装的是Corwin锁，这只是一个普通的房门锁。我对这锁非常熟悉。以我这个窃贼的手感，我能够将一个基本的模板进行打磨，轻易地做成对应的钥匙。只是，这需要很多耐心等待几个月，因为晚上没有守卫这些门，白天却到处都是警卫。
最后两扇门将是最困难的。在我还没有搞定它们之前，就有消息说我的上诉被驳回了，我面临着随时可能被遣送回Dannemora的可能。从食堂到地窖的门上的锁稍微有些复杂，上面没有印有商标，我找不到线索。时间不多了，我去找我的一个朋友，他叫Bugsy Goldstein（巴格西·戈尔德斯坦），他为食堂的一位警官工作。
Goldstein天生就擅长搞笑，他和这个警官相处的非常友好。于是我给了他一块蜡，告诉他我需要什么，他向我保证他一定会办到。
几天后，他开始跟这个军官混在一起，突然，他抓住警官帽子和钥匙跑进浴室。很快，他用钥匙在蜡上留下印记，然后把蜡拍在洗脸盆下面，然后跑回来。这位警官对着他大喊大叫，他真是疯了。他大声叫骂他。Bugsy Goldstein所做的只是耸耸肩说：“好吧，现在你知道他们为什么叫我Bugsy了。”
我有了三个木门的钥匙。其他（三个）大门我闭着眼睛也能打开。（对于）通往院子的铁门，我将不得不冒险。那个模范囚犯告诉我，晚上在食堂的地窖里没有人，这就是我所需要的。如果它有个（钥匙）孔，给些时间我就把它打开。
我告诉Eagen我准备越狱，并且问他给我多一些钢锯。这时他告诉我说他要和我一起离开。有两个非常明显的理由，我认为这不是个好主意。首先，他只剩下大概2年的刑期。其次，两个男人从牢房中逃跑将大大增加被发现的机会。尽管如此，Johnny Eagen帮了我这么多，如果他想要的话，他有资格一起来。
Eagen在同一层另一边背靠背的牢房，如果我们两个人一起走，必须完美配合。当Eagen出现在我的牢房外面时，我已经彻底将钢筋割开了，在毛毯下做个伪装，看上去好像我在睡觉的样子。我挪开钢筋，挤出去，然后将钢筋放回原处，用一大块胶带裹住。我有足够的信心，守卫走过来的时候，不会发现任何异常。三个警官聚集在我们下面一层的平地上，我们几乎可以听到他们所说的一切。我们尽可能悄悄地走下走廊，走到了囚房的尽头，沿着三层楼梯往下走。
原文：
138-139页
As it was, it took me practically the whole night to get more than halfway through and satisfy myself that there was nothing there that didn’t meet the eye. Marvelous. I smoothed the cut portion over with green putty and painted it black, and now the “escapeproof” propaganda was working for me.
I wasn’t the only one who was excited. Once Eagen had stuck his neck out by handing me the blades, I had told him what my theory was. As we started down the hill the next morning he could scarcely contain himself. “What the hell happened?” he hissed. “Can it be cut?” “Yeah. It was just like cardboard. I was three quarters of the way through.” And even then he couldn’t believe it.
Getting out of the cell, I cautioned him, was a far cry from getting out of the prison. I was still going to have to get from the upper tier to the lower tier of the cellblock, and out into a fifteen-foot corridor which led to the mess hall. From there, I’d have to go down into the mess-hall cellar and out into the yard. Seven doors I’d have to go through at four key intersections; three blind wooden doors, three barred gates, and, finally, the huge metal door in the cellar that opened into the yard.
But even here, the overconfidence of the jailers would be working for me.
Seven doors, and not a guard at any of them.
With the old powerhouse closed down, Eagen came to my aid again by working longer hours in the plumber shop so that he could pick up the material for picklocks and keys. The first two wooden doors had Corwin locks, which is nothing more than a routine house lock. I knew the lock so well that through a process of elimination on the basic patterns, and with my burglar’s touch, I could very easily narrow it down to the right key. Just in itself, that took a great deal of patience over a matter of months because while the doors weren’t guarded at night, there were guards all over the place during the daytime.
The last two doors were going to be the toughest. Before I could get to them word came through that my appeal had been denied and I was faced with the possibility that I might be shipped to Dannemora at any time. The lock on the door from the mess hall to the cellar had a somewhat more sophisticated lock, and there was no trade name stamped on it to give me a clue. With time running out on me, I went to a friend of mine, a fellow named Bugsy Goldstein, who worked for one of the officers in the mess hall.
Goldstein was a natural clown, and he and this officer had become very friendly. So I gave him a slab of wax and told him what I needed, and he gave me his word that he’d get it for me.
A few days later he began to fool around with this officer, and all of a sudden he grabbed his hat and his keys and went running into the bathroom.
Quick like that, he took an impression of the key, slapped the wax under the washbowl, and came running back out. Well, this officer was screaming at him, that’s how mad he was. He bawled the hell out of him. And all Bugsy Goldstein did was shrug his hands and say, “Well, now you know why they call me Bugsy.” I had my keys to the three wooden doors. The gates I could pick with my eyes shut. The iron door leading out into the yard I was just going to have to take my chances with. The trusty had told me that nobody was ever in the mess-hall cellar at night, and that was all I needed. A little time. If it had a hole in it, I’d open it.
I told Eagen I was ready to go, and asked him to get me some more hacksaws. And that was when he told me he wanted to go with me. There were two very good reasons why I didn’t think that was such a very good idea. In the first place, he had only about two years left on his sentence. In the second, two men cutting their way out of their cells was going to vastly increase the chances of detection. Still and all, Johnny Eagen had helped me so much that he was entitled to come along if that was what he wanted.
Eagen was on the same tier but he locked on the other side of the back-toback cells. With two of us going, the coordination had to be perfect. By the time Eagen appeared outside my cell, I had already cut through the bar and made a form under the blanket to make it look as if I were asleep. I just pulled the bar out, squeezed through, and then wrapped a hunk of tape around the bar after I had put it back in place. That’s how confident I was that the guard wouldn’t notice anything when he came around. Three officers were congregated on the flat of the tier directly below us, and we could hear almost everything they were saying. As stealthily as possible, we padded down the gallery to the end of the cellblock and went down the three flights of stairs.
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