"Well, that would all be first rate," is my interested comment; "but how about the discipline? Would you let everybody out into the yard? What about those bad actors who don't know how to behave? Won't they quarrel and fight and try to escape?"

"But don't you see, Tom, that they couldn't do that without putting the whole thing on the bum, and depriving the rest of us of our privileges?

You needn't be afraid we couldn't handle those fellows all right. Or why not let out only those men who have a good conduct bar? That's it," he continues, enthusiastically warming up to his subject, "that's it, Tom, a Good Conduct League. And give the privilege of Sunday afternoons to the members of the league. I'll tell you, Tom! you know last year we got up an Anti-swearing League here in this shop, and we had a penalty for every oath or dirty word. The forfeits were paid with matches. You know matches are pretty scarce here, don't you? Well, we had a grand success with that league. But this Good Conduct League would be a much bigger thing. It would be just great. And go! sure it'll go."

"Well, Jack, perhaps you've hit the right nail on the head. We'll think it over, and talk more about it to-morrow."

Thus I close the conversation, wishing time to consider Jack's suggestion before we continue discussing a subject so big with possibilities. Sunday afternoon may be the key to the whole situation, and Jack may have found the key to the question of Sunday afternoon.

Toward the end of the day, when we have finished our work and Jack is sweeping up, I first read all the newspapers which have floated in my direction, and then take a long walk in stretches of ten feet or so. Our talk has given me much to think about. Jack, after finishing his sweeping, also walks, but in a different direction; for there is a strict rule that no two convicts may walk together. I manage at times to stretch my course a little, on one side or another, and whisper a word or two to some of the other prisoners. My remarks are always greeted with a ready smile and a pleasant gleam of the eye--even in the case of a poor fellow whose face shows that he is lacking in ordinary intelligence.

Closing time comes. "Good night, Jack!" "Good night, Tom!" (I got ahead of my partner this time.) We form in line; the old men and cripples start off first; the rest of us march up the steps and along the tracks; then after pausing at the bucket stands, swing up the yard to the main building; where I seize my bread, clamber up the iron steps; pass a whispered word or two to some of my special friends as we separate for the night; take my tin cup of fresh water which stands on the shelf; stand for a moment at the cell entrance watching the fellows pass who lock in around the corner; and then pull to my iron grated door, locking myself in for the night. I never perform this last operation and hear the click of the lever which announces that I am fastened securely in my cell, without a feeling of resentment. At least, if a man is to be caged like this, it ought to be done by visible exercise of authority. They shouldn't expect him to lock his own cage. Speaking as a convict, I call it adding insult to injury.

The following is Jack Murphy's description of the regular routine: "On reaching his gallery each inmate must go direct to his cell, closing his iron door to within an inch of the catch, where the lever falls in place.

He must then stand with hands on his iron-grated door until the Captain (who is now on his way, locking up) reaches his cell; then the convict pulls in his door, the lever falls into its catch and the Captain simultaneously inserts his large key into a lock at the side, locking the lever so that it cannot be raised. He then counts his company.

"The process of counting is done in this manner: the Captain, in passing each cell, takes hold of the lever while the inmate shakes his door vigorously. In this way the Captain does two mental things at one time, namely: he assures himself that each cell door is securely locked, and that his charge is behind that secured lock. This procedure is continued until the last cell and convict is counted. Then the iron bar which runs the length of the gallery is let down by a lever operated by the Captain at the end of the gallery. This bar runs in front of an iron rod or arm attached outward from the cell door. It is twenty inches long by half an inch square, and is fastened to the left side of the cell door.

"I forgot to say that, after the lever, which lowers the long iron bar, is pulled down, it is also treated to the lock-up system. A Yale lock is used for this purpose; so you see the poor dumb iron is even a victim to the Prison System.

"In case of illness, after the prison is closed for the night, an officer has to go to the trouble of running up to the front hall for the key of the gallery on which the convict is ill. This would take him 15 minutes to do; and after he got through unlocking all the locks and pulling the lever the convict might be fit for an undertaker instead of a doctor.

"A convict must not loiter on his gallery. This is considered by some captains a serious offense; and as for talking--good night! This last is as bad as if you were charged with talking out of your cell to your next-door neighbor. A report for such an offense would read something like this: 'Convict Brown is reported by Captain Jeff [or Mutt] for the following: Loitering on the gallery, talking and causing general disorder.' Next morning Convict Brown would hit the Booby Hatch for three or four days and a fine of $5.00."

Jack's statement is, of course, correct. I knew that I was taking a chance in whispering; but I got away with it, all right. So do others, including Jack himself.

To understand fully the Prison System it should be added that this long iron bar, which forms the third lock and about which so much fuss is made, only exists in the basement and second tier in the North Wing, and not at all in the South Wing. There is no discrimination made, by confining the more dangerous men in the extra-locked cells. But, gravely, every night and morning, that silly extra bar is lowered and raised for a small percentage of the prisoners--a ridiculous waste of time and energy.

This evening has been marked by a visit from the Chaplain, who has returned from Syracuse. He tells me that my experiment has aroused great interest among the clergymen assembled at a religious conference he has been attending; that he has had to answer countless questions. He also tells me that he is returning there again this evening and will telephone to the gentleman who was proposing to employ his assistant, Dickinson, and see if work cannot possibly be found for him. I tell the Chaplain of my letter, and beg him to add assurance of my own belief in the young man's stability and intention to do right.

Later the Warden comes. He brings me, as usual, a copy of the Auburn newspaper, so that I must set this down as the third exception that is made in my case. As a regular newcomer I should not be allowed a newspaper.

I ask the Warden about last night's disturbance. He has inquired into it, he says, and found it was only a case of a troublesome fellow, sent up from Sing Sing recently, who was making some little disturbance in the gallery. After they admonished him he wouldn't stop, so they had to take him down to the jail. When the officer entered his cell, he threw his bucket at the officer and there was a little row. "I'm inclined to think,"

adds the Warden, "that he may be a little bit crazy, and I'm going to look into it."

"I suppose that is the official version," I remark to the Warden. "Well, I certainly hope you will look further into it; for, speaking frankly, I think they are trying to slip one over on you. If my information is correct, and I believe it is, the case is rather different from what you have told me; and the treatment given the young fellow was inexcusably brutal."

I put the matter rather mildly to the Warden, for I don't want him to think that I am losing my balance and taking everything that is said to me by all my fellow-prisoners as gospel truth. To believe everything they say would doubtless be as stupid as to believe nothing.

The Warden and I again discuss the desirability of my working in one of the other shops during the remaining time here; but after full consideration we both feel that more is to be gained by staying where I am. There is only a day and a half left.

"You still feel, then, as if you wanted to try the jail?" asks the Warden.

"Yes, more so than ever," I answer, "for I must find out why the prisoners all speak of it with such horror. When you showed me the place last June, I thought it a very uncomfortable hole, and it was not pleasant to think about afterward. But there must be some such place to put men who defy all authority; and it didn't strike me as so very terrible. These fellows all speak of it with bated breath and a queer look in the eyes, as though it held some ghastly recollection. What can it be?"

"I'm sure I don't know," answers the Warden.

"Well, neither do I, and I want to find out. Of course," I add, "I'm not going to be foolish about the thing. If I find I don't feel well enough for any reason, when Saturday comes, I shall just cut it out. But if my physical condition continues as good as it is now, I mean to try it."

"All right," says the Warden. "I wanted to know, so that I can give orders to have one of those jail suits washed. There is no need of your running any unnecessary risk in the matter, and those dirty old clothes I don't like."

This is my first knowledge of the custom of giving the prisoners who are sent to the punishment cells clothes especially reserved for the jail; and my thoughts travel at once to the filthy and disreputable garments I had seen on a prisoner the Warden had once interviewed there in my presence.

"Well, I shall appreciate it if I can have a clean suit," I said. "There's no reason, I suppose, why I should not accept that exception."

So it is arranged. The Warden's visit comes to an end, and another day of my voluntary exile from society is closed.

Now for another long and restless night.

I shall not mind so much the periods of wakefulness to-night. Jack Murphy's Good Conduct League will give me plenty of food for thought. I believe he has struck the path for which I have been groping.

CHAPTER XI

FRIDAY

In my cell, Friday evening, October 3.

This morning breaks gray and cloudy again. I wake early and hear the night officer, some time before six o'clock, come and wake my neighbor in the next cell. He and I tap each other "Good night" regularly now; and this morning I send through the stone wall a greeting for the day. He returns my message; and when the keeper comes again at six o'clock, this time to open his cell, he waits, apparently, until that officer's back is turned and then, putting his head only just so far past the opening of my cell that his voice can reach me, utters a hoarse and hasty "Good morning" and vanishes. This puts me in thorough good humor, and as I hear the factory bells and whistles greet the new morn I turn over to take just one final nap before beginning my own preparations for the day's work, wondering what new turn my adventure will take before night again falls.

Is it imagination, or is there more friendliness than usual in the nods and smiles which greet me from the faces upturned in the corridor below, as I traverse the gallery with my heavy bucket? It was extensively questioned among the convicts, in advance of my coming, whether I would do this particular part of the prison duty. As one of them told me, it was thought I would find some way to escape it; and the fact that I did not try to escape it, but assumed it cheerfully and as a matter of course, has much impressed them. As Joe put it to me three days ago, it was proof that I "meant business," and took the thing seriously, meaning to do exactly what I said--live the actual life of a convict up to the possible limit.

Bucket duty performed and while I wait in my cell for the breakfast hour, Dickinson comes running to my door. The good fellow has heard from the Chaplain that his job is ready for him and he can go out to-morrow. "And I can never be grateful enough to you, sir," he says with much feeling. "I shall never forget what you and the Chaplain have done for me; and I assure you you will never regret it, for I intend to go straight and show you that I mean every word I say."

"I'm sure you do; and I'm sure you will go straight," is my comment. "But how about your clothes? Have you anything but the prison suit you get on your discharge?"

"No, nothing."

"Well, but you can't go to work outside in those. People will spot you as an ex-con at once. Don't you want me to fix it so that you can get a decent suit?"

"Oh, if you only would!" is his heartfelt exclamation. "And, say, Mr.

Osborne--pardon me--I mean Mr. Brown, if you'll please consider them not as a gift, if you'll let me have the money as a loan, I shall be greatly obliged. And I'll pay it back just as soon as I possibly can."

So we make arrangements by which he can be aided in this way, and I sit down to write a note relative to the matter, but am interrupted by breakfast.

As we march to breakfast I try my hand, or rather my throat, at motionless conversation. Wishing to get word to one of the prisoners to procure a certain definite piece of information about the Wednesday evening incident, I seize upon a favorable moment to communicate with Roger Landry, who is marching ahead of me. In the faintest whisper and without moving my lips, I say: "Cun to ny cell a'ter dreak'ast." The ghost of a nod shows that he has heard and understood, and so we march in to our morning meal.

This time it is again hash, with the usual accompaniments--the rather sour bread and nasty coffee. (Whatever else changes, the bootleg remains the same.) The hash is better than that which we had for breakfast on--Wednesday, was it? I place aside only one piece of bone and one of gristle.

During the meal I look around more closely than I have previously done at the officers within my range of vision. There is one who wears a flannel shirt, and is so unshaven that he looks like a tramp. I'm glad I'm not under that Captain. At first I thought he was some one who had been drafted temporarily for duty, but I find he is one of the regular officers.

Here is an interesting psychological fact: that much as a man dislikes being treated as a slave, yet if he is to be so treated he wants his master to be the most efficient and best-looking master of the lot. I find myself comparing our Captain with this untidy-looking person in the flannel shirt, and having a distinct feeling of pride in the good looks and clean-cut appearance of our master. I know that if I were serving under that flannel-shirted and collarless officer I should have very little respect for myself and none for him. I don't know who he is, and he may be one of the kindest and best tempered of men; but I would be willing to wager that the prisoners under his charge are difficult to handle. It does not speak well for the general discipline of the prison that such a breach of official decorum should be permitted. The officer's cap on top of the unshaven face and the flannel shirt looks ridiculously out of place.