Good Lord! it only needed this!

Immediately I begin to feel myself attacked by vermin from all directions.

I know of no other instance where the power of suggestion can give so much discomfort. Once mention vermin, and all repose of mind is gone for me until I can reach a bathtub. Just at present, however, I should feel grateful if I could even wash my hands.

Stretched on the floor at the back of the cell I try to find a comfortable position, but without success. I toss and turn on the hard boards, and finally give a groan of discouragement.

"What's the matter, Tom?" Number Four is alert as usual.

"Oh, nothing, only I can't find a soft spot in this confounded place. It wouldn't be so bad if I had a pillow."

"Guess you don't know how to sleep on the floor," says Joe, and he proceeds to give useful instructions as to the best means of arriving at a minimum of discomfort. Following Joe's advice, I remove my felt shoes, and with my shirt rolled up on top of them have a very fair pillow. My coat must be taken off and thrown over the body as a coverlet, for one gets more warmth and comfort in this way than when it is worn. As I make these changes I also shift my place in the cell, moving over toward the door; for just as Joe is giving me his suggestions, a suspicious crawling on my neck gives the chance to remove a large-sized bedbug which, in spite of the special cleaning the cell had undergone just before my arrival, has found its way in.

And now comes a weird episode of this strange night's experience. What the hour is I can only guess; but, having heard the distant sounds of the nine o'clock train going west, and the nine-fifty going east, I think it must be in the neighborhood of half past ten. Lying on the hard floor I am feeling not sleepy, but very tired--drowsy from sheer mental exhaustion. I hear my name called again, asking if I am still awake, but I do not answer, for I hardly know whether I am or not.

Suddenly a wail comes from the next cell, "Oh, my God! I've tipped over my water!"

For an instant I feel as if I must make an attempt to batter down the iron wall between us. I have been hoarding my own water; let me share it with that poor sick boy. But the next thought brings me to my senses. I am powerless. I can only listen to the poor fellow's groans, while tears of rage and sympathy are wiped from my eyes on the sleeve of my soiled and ragged shirt.

"How did it happen?" I hear Joe ask.

"Oh, I just turned over and stretched my legs out and kicked the can over.

And now--I can't get any water until to-morrow morning! Oh, what in Hell shall I do?"

The speaker's voice dies away into inarticulate moaning. Quietly I reach over for my own precious can of water and place it securely in a corner--far removed from any probable activities of my feet. Then presently as I lie quietly, awake and listening, I become aware of a terrible thing. I hear Number Two talking to himself and then calling out to Joe, "When he comes in here to-morrow morning, I'll just--I'll--I'll throw my bucket at his head!" and I realize that he is talking of an assault upon the keeper. Then he begins to mutter wild nothings to himself. Gradually there dawns upon me a hideous thought--the poor lad is going out of his mind.

What shall I do? What can I do? What can anyone do? If we could only get some water to him! But the iron cage is solid on all sides. If we could only arouse the keeper! But there is no possible way to make anyone hear.

We could all scream our lungs out and no one would come. We might all go mad and die in our cells and no one would come.

But if I am helpless, not so Number Four. I soon hear Joe beginning to talk with the boy; and I perceive that Joe also has realized the situation, and with admirable patience and tact is applying the remedy.

Never have I witnessed a finer act of Christian charity toward suffering humanity, never more skilful treatment of a sick and nervous fellow-creature. The first thing an intelligent doctor would advise in such a case is that the patient should confide in a sympathetic friend, air his grievance, get it out of his system, let the dangerous gases escape. A more sympathetic friend than Joe one could not find. Bit by bit he draws Number Two's story from him and encourages him to vent his anger at the prison officials and their whole infernal system, and in fact at all things and persons related to his present situation.

Then having laid bare the wound Joe begins to apply antiseptic and soothing treatment. "Now you mustn't worry too much about this thing," is the advice of the sympathetic listener. "You've had a rotten deal, but listen to this." And he relates some peculiarly atrocious case of punishment--true or otherwise. He gradually soothes the boy's irritated temper, and then at the appropriate moment says, "Now give us another song!"

Number Two, after some demur, complies; sings a tender, sentimental ballad, and evidently feels better.

Then Joe cracks a joke; chats with Number Two about a few topics of general interest; and then, yawning, expresses his own intention of going to sleep. There are a few scattered incidental remarks at ever longer intervals. Then as I listen carefully and hear nothing in the next cell, I conclude that Number Two is safely over the strain for the time; that with Joe's help he has conquered his black mood and is back on the right road again.

Good for you, Joe! Whatever your sins and failures of the past, whatever your failures and sins of the future, I do not believe that the Recording Angel will forget to jot down something to your credit for this night in Cell Four.

Quiet has settled upon us. There is heavy breathing in some of the cells, and I think that even Joe is contradicting his statement regarding sleep in the jail. But for a long time I can get no such relief. My ever increasing sympathy and anger are making me feverish. But at last, somewhere near midnight as near as I can judge, I do succeed in dropping off to sleep. It is a restless slumber at the best, for I am repeatedly made aware of some bone or muscle with the existence of which I am not usually concerned. So I twist and turn, as every few moments I am hazily and painfully aroused into semi-consciousness.

But even this restless slumber is denied me. Before I have found relief in it for more than half an hour I am suddenly and roughly awakened. The door of the cell is rattled violently and a harsh voice calls out, "Here!

Answer to your name! Brown!"

Recovering my dazed and scattered senses as well as I can, I reply, "Here, sir!" and have a mind to add, "Still alive," but suppress the impulse as I wish to ask a favor.

"Officer," I say, as politely as possible, "that poor fellow in the next cell has tipped over his can of water. Can't you let him have some more?"

The answer is far more courteous than I deserve for such an unheard-of and scandalous proposition. The keeper says shortly and gruffly, "'Fraid I can't. 'Gainst the rules." And he coolly proceeds to wake up the occupants of the other cells.

Setting my teeth firmly together, while the blood goes rushing to my temples, I feel for the moment as if I should smother. Perhaps it is as well that I am under lock and key, for I should like to commit murder. To think that any man can grow so callous to human suffering as to forget the very first duty of humanity. Even soldiers on the battlefield will give a drink of water to a dying enemy. And here we have an organized System which in cold blood forbids the giving of a few drops to the parched lips of a sick lad, to save him from misery and madness! And if I am almost stifling with anger at the outrage, what must those men feel who are really suffering? What must those have felt who in the past have been kept here day after day, slowly dying of thirst or going mad on one gill of water in twenty-four hours?

Is it imagination that the very air here seems to be tainted with unseen but malign and potent influences, bred of the cruelty and suffering--the hatred and madness which these cells have harbored? If ever there were a spot haunted by spirits of evil, this must surely be the place. I have been shown through dungeons that seemed to reek with the misery and wretchedness with which some lawless medieval tyrant had filled them; but here is a dungeon where the tyrant is an unreasoning, unreachable System, based upon the law and tolerated by good, respectable, religious men and women. Even more then than the dungeons of Naples is this "the negation of God"; for its foundation is not the brutal whim of a degenerate despot, but the ignorance and indifference of a free and civilized people. Or rather, this is worse than a negation of God, it is a betrayal of God.

After duly waking my companions the keeper amuses himself by fussing with the steam pipes. The vault was already disagreeably close and hot; but he chooses to make it still hotter, and none of us dares to remonstrate. Then he turns out the light and goes his way, and he certainly carries with him my own hearty maledictions, if not those of my fellow prisoners.

It is hopeless to think of going to sleep again at once, although my head is thick and my eyes heavy with fatigue. So again I sit close to the grated door and open up communication with Joe. As usual, he is entirely willing to give his attention, and enters readily into conversation.

"Hey, Tom! Do you want to know my name? It's Joseph Matto. Funny name for an Irishman, ain't it? Well, you know, it ain't my real name. My real name's McNulty. But you see it was this way. When my case came up in court, down in New York, they called out, 'Joseph Matto'; and the cop said, 'Here, you, get up there!' I said, 'That ain't my name'; and he said, 'Never you mind, get up!' So you see I got some other fellow's name, but I thought I might as well keep it, and so I have ever since.

"But it's all right, because I don't want to disgrace my folks. They don't know where I am, and I wouldn't have my mother know for anything.

You see, I'm the black sheep of the family, the rest are all right. I'm the only one that ain't goin' straight. But when I get out of here I mean to go straight. Say, Tom, do you think I can get a job, here in Auburn? My bit is up in December, and I should like to stay here and get straight before I go back home."

"When you get out," is my answer, "it will be up to me to stand treat for a dinner of beefsteak and fried potatoes, at any rate. And I'll do the best I can to help you get a job, Joe, if you really do mean to go straight. But in that neither I nor any one else can help you; you know you'll have to do that yourself."

Poor Number Four! I have not the slightest doubt he means what he says, but here again--this cursed System. It is particularly deadening to a young fellow like Joe. He evidently has just that lively, good-natured, shiftless, irresponsible temperament which needs to be carefully trained in the bearing of responsibility.

While Joe and I are conversing, Number Eight makes his one remark. "Would there be a job for a bricklayer around here?"

I don't know, and tell him so; but add, as in Joe's case, that if he means to go straight I will gladly do what I can for him; and in any event I consider that I owe each of them a good dinner. Thus it is agreed that they will all dine with me in turn upon the happy occasions of their release.

"By the way, Tom, did you go up to that Bertillon room?" Joe is off on a new tack.

"Oh, yes. I did all the regular stunts."

"Were you measured and photographed, and all that?"

"Yes, and my finger prints taken. I went through the whole thing."

"Gee! Well, then, they'll have your picture in the rogues' gallery, won't they, along with the rest of us?"

"I suppose they will," is my answer, and then I tell how my scars and marks were all discovered and duly set down in the record; and wind up with a variation of the same mild joke which so bored the clerk of the Bertillon room. "And do you know, boys, after he had got me all sized up and written down, I felt as if it would never be safe for me to adopt burglary as a profession; and I've always rather looked forward to that."

My companions are not bored but appreciative, they laugh with some heartiness. Then after a pause Joe says quite seriously, "Well say, Tom! I can just tell you one thing, you needn't ever have any fear that your house will be entered!"

"Oh! Do you think the crooks will all recognize me as one of themselves?"

"Sure!" is Joe's hearty rejoinder. He evidently considers it a compliment, and I accept it as such. At any rate I have apparently hit upon rather a novel form of burglary insurance.

It must be somewhere between half past one and two o'clock that sheer exhaustion sends me off to sleep again. This time my slumber is more successful than before. It is only occasionally that the discomfort of the hard floor forces me back into consciousness, and forces me also to such changes of position as seem necessary to prevent my bones coming through.

Many of them seem to be getting painfully near the surface.

It was Number Five, I think, who informed me that it is the custom down here for the keeper to visit us every four hours--at half past twelve and half past four. The first visit I have described. After that, for nearly three hours, I get such sleep as the hard floor affords. About half past four I am having an interval of semi-consciousness--enough to realize dimly how utterly worn out I still feel both in body and mind, and how both crave more rest. So I am struggling very hard not to awake, when the light of the keeper's electric bull's-eye flashes through the iron grating straight into my eyes.

With curses too violent and sincere for utterance I report myself still in existence.

Now I am so constituted that at the best of times a sudden awakening always annoys me greatly. Just now it quite upsets my equilibrium. A torrent of rage and hate surges up through my whole being; it fairly frightens me by its violence. For a moment I feel as if I were being strangled. Then I make up my mind that I must and will get to sleep again, in spite of the keeper and his infernal light; and I make desperate attempts to do so, for I realize that I am expected to speak in chapel before many hours, and have a trying day before me. I am bound, therefore, to have myself in no worse condition than I can possibly help.