nd then with decided
approbation, caused me some inward discomfort, for I had in my mind a
very distinct and highly disagreeable picture of the visiting
arrangements at a local prison in one of the provinces, at which I had
acted temporarily as medical officer.

"I suppose," I said at length, "it is of no use for me to re-open the
question of the advisability of this visit on your part?"

"Not the least," she replied resolutely, "though I understand and
appreciate your motive in wishing to do so."

"Then," said I, "if you are really decided, it will be as well for me to
prepare you for the ordeal. I am afraid it will give you a terrible
shock."

"Indeed?" said she. "Is it so bad? Tell me what it will be like."

"In the first place," I replied, "you must keep in your mind the purpose
of a prison like Holloway. We are going to see an innocent man--a
cultivated and honourable gentleman. But the ordinary inmates of
Holloway are not innocent men; for the most part, the remand cases on
the male side are professional criminals, while the women are either
petty offenders or chronic inebriates. Most of them are regular
customers at the prison--such is the idiotic state of the law--who come
into the reception-room like travellers entering a familiar hostelry,
address the prison officers by name and demand the usual privileges and
extra comforts--the 'drunks,' for instance, generally ask for a dose of
bromide to steady their nerves and a light in the cell to keep away the
horrors. And such being the character of the inmates, their friends who
visit them are naturally of the same type--the lowest outpourings of the
slums; and it is not surprising to find that the arrangements of the
prison are made to fit its ordinary inmates. The innocent man is a
negligible quantity, and no arrangements are made for him or his
visitors."

"But shall we not be taken to Reuben's cell?" asked Miss Gibson.

"Bless you! no," I answered; and, determined to give her every
inducement to change her mind, I continued: "I will describe the
procedure as I have seen it--and a very dreadful and shocking sight I
found it, I can tell you. It was while I was acting as a prison doctor
in the Midlands that I had this experience. I was going my round one
morning when, passing along a passage, I became aware of a strange,
muffled roar from the other side of the wall.

"'What is that noise?' I asked the warder who was with me.

"'Prisoners seeing their frie