"Thank you, sir."

I cannot even be trusted to go down one flight of stairs and walk not more than thirty steps to the door of the basket-shop; so another wait is necessary until the keeper who brought me up is ready to take me back. He in time reappears and returns me, like a large and animated package, to Captain Kane. I appear to have satisfied the authorities with my mental equipment.

My second new experience to-day is the bath. The order to fall in comes soon after my return from the school. We are lined up and counted--35 of us--each man with his towel, soap and bundle of clean clothes. My fresh apparel appeared yesterday in the shop and George kindly took care of it for me until to-day. We march in due order to a large bathhouse where are rows of shower baths with small anterooms for dressing, arranged about three sides of a large, oblong room with a raised promenade for the officers down the middle. I am for plunging at once into my section, heedless of the careful instructions Jack has given me, but one of my companions stops me, and I wait like the others with my back to the door until we have all been counted and placed. Then the word is given, and I enter. Here is a very small space where I undress, handing the shirt, socks, and underclothes I take off to an attendant who sticks his hand under the door to get them. Then I enjoy a good warm shower for a few moments, but cut it short, having been warned that I must not waste any time. The drying and dressing are rather harder than the disrobing in such confined quarters, but are successfully accomplished, and I am among the first to emerge and take up my station outside, with my back to the door again. The officer, who has been walking up and down his elevated perch, keeping close watch of our heads while we bathed, counts us all carefully when the space in front of every man's door is occupied. We then are marched back to the shop, are again counted, and then disperse to our work.

But the excitements of the day are not yet over. As Jack and I are working hard to make up for lost time, I suddenly see over to the left, out of the corner of my eye, a familiar figure. It is my nephew. He is followed by another familiar figure and another and another. The Warden is showing over the prison a party of visitors, among them several of my intimate friends.

I fear that the remark with which I explode will not bear repetition.

"What's the matter?" says Jack, looking up from his work.

"Nothing," I reply, "it's only my nephew, confound him, and some other rubbernecks. For Heaven's sake, Jack, work away as usual and don't attract any attention if we can help it."

My eyeglasses are in my pocket; and fearing that my ring may catch the light I hastily drop it also into another pocket. Then I put on my cap and continue my work as naturally as possible, without looking up.

Certainly, so far as appearances go, the prison system is a success in my case. In arithmetic, as I recall it, we used to seek for the greatest common denominator and the least common multiple; but in prison the apparent object is to find the least common denominator--the lowest common plane upon which you can treat everyone alike, college graduate and Bowery tough, sick and well, imbecility and intelligence, vice and virtue.

In appearance, as I started to say, I am apparently all that could be desired. Just as happened yesterday, the Warden leads this party through the shop; they are all looking specially for me; they have been spurred on by the failure of the newspaper men yesterday and are one and all determined to find me. Yet they one and all pass within twenty feet, look straight in my direction--and go on their way without recognizing me. I must have the marks of "the Criminal" unusually developed, or else criminals must look a good deal like other folks--barring the uniform. If I had the ordinary theories about prisons and prisoners it might seem rather mortifying that, in spite of every effort, not one of these intimate friends can spot me among the toughest bunch of fellows in the prison.

Certainly something must be wrong somewhere.

This appears to be an afternoon of excitements. Down comes the P. K.

again, for what purpose I do not know. The afternoon is cloudy and it is getting somewhat dark and gloomy in the shop. After the P. K. has spoken to the Captain he comes over and tells us fellows that we can quit work if we want to, as it is too dark to see well. He points to the north windows, where a car of lumber on the track outside interferes somewhat with the light in that part of the shop. After he is gone we continue working, as we can see perfectly well; and Jack is still more scornful than he was this morning. He expresses the opinion that this proceeding is even more raw than the former one. "I should like to know how long it is since they was so careful of our eyes, so awful anxious about our health!" is his sarcastic comment.

My answering comment is this, "I dare say, Jack, it's all right; but, so far as I am concerned, they can't come it over me that way."

"Well, I guess not!" is Jack's hearty response.

After we have washed up and just before we separate for the night my partner comes up to me in his engaging way. "Say, would you mind if I called you by your first name?"

"Mind! I should like it; and I wish you would." As a matter of fact I had been intending to ask him to do so.

So now it is "Good night, Tom," "Good night, Jack!" when the time comes to fall in.

As we turn into the yard, I see a group of men gathered about the entrance of the main building. I suspect it to be the same party of rubbernecks the Warden conducted through the shop this afternoon--including my friends.

They are evidently waiting for us to march by. As we draw nearer I find that my suspicions are confirmed. I conclude that they failed to discover me in the shop, and so are taking this means of gratifying their curiosity. They are welcome to do so. I look as unconscious as possible; go swinging by the group, eyes front; pick up a slice of bread and regain my cell as usual.

It seems that this time two or three of them, recognizing my walk, spotted me at last. I should think it was about time.

Soon after I am in the cell my friend Joe, the gallery boy, comes along with the hot beverage called tea, which is a little later than usual to-night. He halts at the door.

"Tea, Tommy?"

One of the prisoners has sent me a letter in which he addresses me as "old pal."

I think there is no doubt that the barriers are down now.

CHAPTER IX

WEDNESDAY EVENING

In my cell, later Wednesday evening, October 2.

Upon arriving back here this afternoon, and before sitting down to my usual supper of bread and water, I shave leisurely. In spite of the jar of hot water which George has kindly brought to the cell before I am locked in for the night, my toilet arrangements leave much to be desired. It is true I have shaved at times under greater disadvantages. As, for instance, in camp, when I have had to use the inside of my watch-cover for a mirror.

Here in prison I have at least a real mirror, such as it is.

My toilet completed, I make as much of a meal as I can of bread and water.

Then I take up my journal to chronicle the events of the day.

The twenty minutes of musical pandemonium come and go, the violinist as usual being the first to begin. Perhaps he may be the fortunate possessor of a watch. Then, also as usual, a silence follows, rendered all the more profound by reason of the previous discord. The cell-house has settled down for the night. Only a few muffled sounds make the stillness more distinctly felt. Then----

Suddenly the unearthly quiet is shattered by a terrifying uproar.

It is too far away to hear at first anything with distinctness; it is all a confused and hideous mass of shouting--a shouting first of a few, then of more, then of many voices. I have never heard anything more dreadful--in the full meaning of the word--full of dread. My heart is thumping like a trip hammer, and the cold shivers run up and down my back.

I jump to the door of the cell, pressing my ear close against the cold iron bars. Then I can distinguish a few words sounding against the background of the confused outcry. "Stop that!" "Leave him alone!" "Damn you, stop that!" Then some dull thuds; I even fancy that I hear something like a groan, along with the continued confused and violent shouting.

What can it be?

While I am perfectly aware that I am not in the least likely to be harmed, I am shivering with something close akin to a chill of actual terror. If anyone near at hand were to give vent to a sudden yell, I feel as if I might easily lose my self-control and shout and bang my door with the rest of them.

The cries continue, accompanied with other noises that I cannot make out.

Then my attention is attracted by whispering down at one of the lower windows in the outer wall of the corridor opposite my cell. It is so dark outside that I can see nothing, not even the dim shapes of the whisperers; but apparently there are two of them, and they are looking in and commenting on the disturbance. Their sinister whispering is very unpleasant. I wonder if they can see what is going on. I feel inclined to call out and ask them, but I do not know who they are; and I do know that such an act would be entirely against the rules and liable to provoke severe punishment, and I am not yet ready to be sent to the jail.

The shouts die down. There are a few more vague and uncertain sounds--all the more dreadful for being uncertain; somewhere an iron door clangs! then stillness follows, like that of the grave.

It is useless--I can make nothing of it all; so I sit down again and try to compose my mind to write, but the effort is not very successful.

Presently, just after the bell at the City Hall has given its eight o'clock stroke, the Warden appears quietly at the opening of my cell.

"Something has happened," I begin breathlessly, "I don't know what it is, but it ought to be looked into----"

I come to an abrupt stop, for I am suddenly aware of the figure of a man standing in the shadow just behind the Warden.

"Who is that?" I ask, and he steps farther along the gallery, but not where the light from the cell can strike him.

"Only the night officer," answers the Warden.

That is all very well; but why was the night officer lurking in the dark behind the Warden? I decide to ask him a plain, direct question; for he has already heard what is uppermost in my mind.

"Captain," I say, politely, "what was that noise I heard a short while ago?"

The officer, pretending that he has not heard my question, turns to the Warden with some perfectly irrelevant remark, and moves off, along the gallery.

It strikes me as a curious proceeding.