"Hello, I'm Andy Dufresne."

 "Hello," he said. "I'm Andy Dufresne." He offered his hand and I shook it. He wasn't a man to waste time being social; he got right to the point. "I understand that you're a man who knows how to get things. I agreed that I was able to locate certain items from time to time. "How do you do that?" Andy asked. "Sometimes," I said, "things just seem to come into my hand. I can't explain it. Unless it's because I'm Irish." He smiled a little at that. "I wonder if you could get me a rock-hammer."

 The place called the prison is constructed by some big groups of prisoners. Naturally vertical society exists in that. Most people flatter a person of the top of the group. I thought of Andy Dufresne would have a lot to do with how his time went. He probably knew it, too, but he not kowtowing or sucking up to me, and I respected him for that.

 I think it would be fair to say I liked Andy from the first. Therefore I prepared rock-hammer, his according to demand. If it is usual, cost plus ten per cent is my going rate, but I have to go up some on a dangerous item. For something like the gadget you're talking about, it takes a little more goose-grease to get the wheels turning. I did not know it then, a long time after, I discovered that he had better than five hundred. He had brought it in with him.

 After that, I watched him curiously. He walked a few step, saw something in the dirt, bent over, and picked it up. It was a small rock. Prison fatigues, except for those worn by mechanics when they're on the job, have no pockets. But there are ways to get around that. The little pebble disappeared up Andy's mired him. In spite of the problems he was having, he was going on with his life. There are thousands who don't or won't or can't , and plenty  of them aren't in prison, either. And I noticed that, although his face looked as if a twister had happened to it, his hands were still neat and clean, the nails well-kept. But I did not see much of him, over the next six months; Andy spent a lot of that time in solitary.