course, the warders never did such things, but
were really of a very lamblike and gentle nature. In order to back up
their lies the prisoners would knock their own heads against the walls
and then swear by everything good that some one of the warders had done
it. I said, perhaps he had.

Well, he said, perhaps an officer might give a man "a little clip," but
never so as to hurt him, and "only in fun, you know." I felt at the time
that I would never learn to appreciate Chatham "fun," but on the very
next day I was convinced of it when a man named Farrier pulled out from
his waistband a piece of rag, and, unrolling it, produced two of his
front teeth with the information that a certain warder had struck him
with his fist in the mouth and knocked them out.

But to return to my narrative. After many "wise saws and modern
instances," he locked me up in the little brick and stone box and
departed, having first informed me that I "would go out to labor in the
morning."

I looked about my little box with a mixture of curiosity and
consternation, for the thought smote me with blinding force that for
long years that little box--eight feet six inches in length, seven feet
in height and five feet in width, with its floor and roof of
stone--would be my only home--would be! must be! and no power could
avert my fate.

On the small iron shelf I found a tin dish used by some previous
occupant, and smeared inside and out with gruel. There being no water in
my jug, when the men came in for dinner, I, in my innocence, asked one
of the officers for some water to wash the dish. He looked at me with
great contempt and said: "You are a precious flat; lick it off, man.
Before long you won't waste gruel by washing your tin dish. You won't be
here many days and want to use water to clean your pint."

After dinner I saw the men marched out to labor, and was amazed to see
their famished, wolfish looks--thin, gaunt and almost disguised out of
all human resemblance by their ill-fitting, mud-covered garments and
mud-splashed faces and hands. I myself was kept in, but the weary,
almost ghastly spectre march I had witnessed constantly haunted me, and
I said, "Will I ever resemble them?" And youthful spirit and pride
rushed to the front and cried, "Never!"

Night and supper (eight ounces of brown bread) came at length, and I
rose up from my meal cheerful and resolute to meet the worst, be it what
it might short of deliberate persecution, with a s