nt I used
to hear, at irregular intervals, faint, low tappings. From farther away
I also heard fainter and lower tappings. Continually these tappings were
interrupted by the snarling of the guard. On occasion, when the tapping
went on too persistently, extra guards were summoned, and I knew by the
sounds that men were being strait-jacketed.

The matter was easy of explanation. I had known, as every prisoner in
San Quentin knew, that the two men in solitary were Ed Morrell and Jake
Oppenheimer. And I knew that these were the two men who tapped knuckle-
talk to each other and were punished for so doing.

That the code they used was simple I had not the slightest doubt, yet I
devoted many hours to a vain effort to work it out. Heaven knows--it had
to be simple, yet I could not make head nor tail of it. And simple it
proved to be, when I learned it; and simplest of all proved the trick
they employed which had so baffled me. Not only each day did they change
the point in the alphabet where the code initialled, but they changed it
every conversation, and, often, in the midst of a conversation.

Thus, there came a day when I caught the code at the right initial,
listened to two clear sentences of conversation, and, the next time they
talked, failed to understand a word. But that first time!

"Say--Ed--what--would--
you--give--right--now--for--brown--papers--and--a--sack--of--Bull--Durham!"
asked the one who tapped from farther away.

I nearly cried out in my joy. Here was communication! Here was
companionship! I listened eagerly, and the nearer tapping, which I
guessed must be Ed Morrell's, replied:

"I--would--do--twenty--hours--strait--in--the--jacket--for--a--five--cent--sack--"

Then came the snarling interruption of the guard: "Cut that out,
Morrell!"

It may be thought by the layman that the worst has been done to men
sentenced to solitary for life, and therefore that a mere guard has no
way of compelling obedience to his order to cease tapping.

But the jacket remains. Starvation remains. Thirst remains.
Man-handling remains. Truly, a man pent in a narrow cell is very
helpless.

So the tapping ceased, and that night, when it was next resumed, I was
all at sea again. By pre-arrangement they had changed the initial letter
of the code. But I had caught the clue, and, in the matter of several
days, occurred again the same initialment I had understood. I did not
wait on courtesy.

"Hello," I t