fice--that's not possible. It would break
up the order of the place. Still, there's no reason why you shouldn't
see some of your friends now and then. As for your mail--well, that will
have to be opened in the ordinary way for the time being, anyhow. I'll
have to see about that. I can't promise too much. You'll have to wait
until you come out of this block and down-stairs. Some of the cells
have a yard there; if there are any empty--" The warden cocked his eye
wisely, and Cowperwood saw that his tot was not to be as bad as he
had anticipated--though bad enough. The warden spoke to him about the
different trades he might follow, and asked him to think about the one
he would prefer. "You want to have something to keep your hands busy,
whatever else you want. You'll find you'll need that. Everybody here
wants to work after a time. I notice that."

Cowperwood understood and thanked Desmas profusely. The horror of
idleness in silence and in a cell scarcely large enough to turn around
in comfortably had already begun to creep over him, and the thought of
being able to see Wingate and Steger frequently, and to have his mail
reach him, after a time, untampered with, was a great relief. He was
to have his own underwear, silk and wool--thank God!--and perhaps
they would let him take off these shoes after a while. With these
modifications and a trade, and perhaps the little yard which Desmas had
referred to, his life would be, if not ideal, at least tolerable. The
prison was still a prison, but it looked as though it might not be so
much of a terror to him as obviously it must be to many.

During the two weeks in which Cowperwood was in the "manners squad,"
in care of Chapin, he learned nearly as much as he ever learned of the
general nature of prison life; for this was not an ordinary penitentiary
in the sense that the prison yard, the prison squad, the prison
lock-step, the prison dining-room, and prison associated labor make the
ordinary penitentiary. There was, for him and for most of those confined
there, no general prison life whatsoever. The large majority were
supposed to work silently in their cells at the particular tasks
assigned them, and not to know anything of the remainder of the life
which went on around them, the rule of this prison being solitary
confinement, and few being permitted to work at the limited number of
outside menial tasks provided. Indeed, as he sensed and as old Chapin
soon informed him, not more