one thing, you needn't ever have any fear that your
house will be entered!"

"Oh! Do you think the crooks will all recognize me as one of themselves?"

"Sure!" is Joe's hearty rejoinder. He evidently considers it a
compliment, and I accept it as such. At any rate I have apparently hit
upon rather a novel form of burglary insurance.

It must be somewhere between half past one and two o'clock that sheer
exhaustion sends me off to sleep again. This time my slumber is more
successful than before. It is only occasionally that the discomfort of the
hard floor forces me back into consciousness, and forces me also to such
changes of position as seem necessary to prevent my bones coming through.
Many of them seem to be getting painfully near the surface.

It was Number Five, I think, who informed me that it is the custom down
here for the keeper to visit us every four hours--at half past twelve and
half past four. The first visit I have described. After that, for nearly
three hours, I get such sleep as the hard floor affords. About half past
four I am having an interval of semi-consciousness--enough to realize
dimly how utterly worn out I still feel both in body and mind, and how
both crave more rest. So I am struggling very hard not to awake, when the
light of the keeper's electric bull's-eye flashes through the iron grating
straight into my eyes.

With curses too violent and sincere for utterance I report myself still in
existence.

Now I am so constituted that at the best of times a sudden awakening
always annoys me greatly. Just now it quite upsets my equilibrium. A
torrent of rage and hate surges up through my whole being; it fairly
frightens me by its violence. For a moment I feel as if I were being
strangled. Then I make up my mind that I must and will get to sleep again,
in spite of the keeper and his infernal light; and I make desperate
attempts to do so, for I realize that I am expected to speak in chapel
before many hours, and have a trying day before me. I am bound, therefore,
to have myself in no worse condition than I can possibly help.

But of course it is impossible to get to sleep again, I can only follow my
whirling thoughts. How in the world am I ever to speak to those men in
chapel? What in Heaven's name can I say? How can I trust myself to say
anything? How can I urge good conduct, when my whole soul cries out in
revolt? How can I preach resignation and patience against this dark
background of horror?