ng a hallway that was lined with doors, dormitory style. In the
eye-level center of each door was a bull's eye that looked like one-way
glass and undoubtedly was. I itched to take a look, but Phelps was not
having any; he stopped my single step with a hand on my arm.

"This way," he said smoothly.

I went this way and was finally shown into one of the rooms. My nice
clean cell away from home.

XXIV

As soon as Phelps was gone, I took a careful look at my new living
quarters. The room itself was about fourteen by eighteen, but the end in
which I was confined was only fourteen by ten, the other eight feet of
end being barred off by a very efficient-looking set of heavy metal rods
and equally strong cross-girdering. There was a sliding door that fit in
place as nicely as the door to a bank vault; it was locked by heavy
keeper-bars that slid up from the floor and down from the ceiling and
they were actuated by hidden motors. In the barrier was a flat
horizontal slot wide enough to take a tray and high enough to pass a
teacup. The bottom of this slot was flush with a small table that
extended through the barrier by a couple of feet on both sides so that a
tray could be set down on the outside and slipped in.

I tested the bars with my hands, but even my new set of muscles wouldn't
flex them more than a few thousandths of an inch.

The walls were steel. All I got as I tried them was a set of
paint-clogged fingernails. The floor was also steel. The ceiling was a
bit too high for me to tackle, but I assumed that it, too, was steel.
The window was barred from the inside, undoubtedly so that any visitor
from the outside could not catch on to the fact that this building was a
private calaboose.

The--er--furnishings of this cold storage bin were meager of minimum
requirements. A washstand and toilet. A bunk made of metal girders
welded to the floor. The bedding rested on wide resilient straps fixed
to the cross-bars at top and bottom of the bed. A foam-rubber mattress,
sheets, and one blanket finished off the bed.

It was a cell designed by Mekstroms to contain Mekstroms and by
wiseacres to contain other wiseacres. The non-metallic parts of the room
were, of course, fireproof. Anything I could get hold of was totally
useless as a weapon or lever or tool; anything that might have been
useful to a prisoner was welded down.

Having given up in the escape department, I sat on my bunk and lit a
cigarette. I looked fo