not
responsible for the successful working of the machinery of
society. I am not the son of the engineer. I perceive
that, when an acorn and a chestnut fall side by side, the
one does not remain inert to make way for the other, but
both obey their own laws, and spring and grow and flourish
as best they can, till one, perchance, overshadows and
destroys the other. If a plant cannot live according to
nature, it dies; and so a man.

The night in prison was novel and interesting enough.
The prisoners in their shirtsleeves were enjoying a chat and
the evening air in the doorway, when I entered. But the
jailer said, "Come, boys, it is time to lock up"; and so
they dispersed, and I heard the sound of their steps
returning into the hollow apartments. My room-mate was
introduced to me by the jailer as "a first-rate fellow and
clever man." When the door was locked, he showed me where
to hang my hat, and how he managed matters there. The rooms
were whitewashed once a month; and this one, at least, was
the whitest, most simply furnished, and probably neatest
apartment in town. He naturally wanted to know where I came
from, and what brought me there; and, when I had told him, I
asked him in my turn how he came there, presuming him to be
an honest man, of course; and as the world goes, I believe he
was. "Why," said he, "they accuse me of burning a barn; but
I never did it." As near as I could discover, he had
probably gone to bed in a barn when drunk, and smoked his
pipe there; and so a barn was burnt. He had the reputation
of being a clever man, had been there some three months
waiting for his trial to come on, and would have to wait as
much longer; but he was quite domesticated and contented,
since he got his board for nothing, and thought that he was
well treated.

He occupied one window, and I the other; and I saw that
if one stayed there long, his principal business would be to
look out the window. I had soon read all the tracts that
were left there, and examined where former prisoners had
broken out, and where a grate had been sawed off, and heard
the history of the various occupants of that room; for I
found that even there there was a history and a gossip which
never circulated beyond the walls of the jail. Probably
this is the only house in the town where verses are
composed, which are afterward printed in a circular form,
but not published. I was shown quite a long list of young
men who had been detec