of the dynamo next
door, and the death chamber at our backs.

For a while after the departure of Grant we are still talkative. There is
a proposition to settle down for the night, but Joe scouts the notion. So
the conversation is continued; and by way of reviving our drooping spirits
Joe asks again, "Say, fellows! What would you say now to a nice, thick,
juicy steak with fried potatoes?"

As by this time we are all ravenously hungry and some of us well-nigh
famished, what is said to Joe will not bear repetition.

Then we have music. Joe sings an excellent rag-time ditty. Number Two
follows with the Toreador's song from "Carmen," sung in a sweet, true,
light tenor voice that shows real love and appreciation of music. I too
am pressed to sing, but out of consideration for my fellow prisoners
decline, endeavoring in other ways to contribute my share to the
sociability of the occasion. I can at any rate be an appreciative
listener.

After a time, announcing my intention of going to sleep, I stretch out
full length on the hard floor--and it certainly is hard. However, it will
not be the first time I've spent a night on the bare boards; although I've
never done so in a suicide's cell, with the death chamber close at hand. I
don't wonder men go crazy in these cells; that dynamo, with its single
insistent note, slowly but surely boring its way into one's brain, is
enough to send anyone out of his mind, even if there were no other cause.

This is the place where I had expected to meet the violent and dangerous
criminals; but what do I find? A genial young Irishman, as pleasant
company as I have ever encountered, and a sweet-voiced boy singing
"Carmen."

Is this Prison System anything but organized lunacy? I fail to see where
ordinary common sense or a single lesson of human experience has been
utilized in its development.

"Are you asleep yet, Tom?" It is Joe's voice again.

"No, not yet."

"Well, you know, we don't do much of that down here; but it's a mighty
sociable place." Then, as if the idea of sociability had suggested it,
"Any bedbugs yet?"

Horrors!

"Bedbugs!" I gasp, then laugh at the suggestion. "I don't see any bed; how
can there be any bedbugs?"

"Well, I guess you'll have plenty visiting you before the night's over,"
says Joe.

Number Two's plaintive voice is heard again, "I've just killed two."

Good Lord! it only needed this!

Immediately I begin to feel myself attacked by vermin from all di