e a number of other prisoners are awaiting their turns. As my officer
has not come back, and does not do so for some time, there is an
opportunity to practice what is apparently the most necessary virtue of
prison life--patience. I take my place along the wall with the other
convicts and watch for a chance to open a whispered conversation. From
where I stand I can look up a short flight of steps into the front room of
the hospital, where there are a number of men moving about; among them one
of the city undertakers. Then I remember having heard at the front office,
as I came in this morning, of the sudden death of a young prisoner last
night from pneumonia. Four convicts come up the stairs, bringing a large,
ominous looking, oblong receptacle, which they take to a door on my left.
It does not look quite like a coffin, but there is little doubt as to its
purpose. As the door is opened, I glance in; and there, covered with a
white sheet, is all that remains of the poor lad--the disgraced and
discarded human tenement of one divine spark of life.

A death in prison. Tears fill my eyes as I turn away thinking of that
lonely, friendless deathbed; thinking that perhaps some loving mother or
young wife in the world outside, bearing bravely her own share of shame
and punishment, has been struggling to keep body and soul together until
her prisoner could come back home; perhaps at this very moment wondering
why she has not received from him the last monthly letter. And now----
Can the world hold any tragedy more terrible than this?

A young negro prisoner standing by, who has also looked into the chamber
of death, breathes a low sigh and whispers, "God! That's where I wish I
was!"

The convict next him, a broad-shouldered young chap, who whispers to me
that he comes from Brooklyn and gets out in January, goes in to ask some
special favor of the Doctor. He gives me on the side a most humorous and
quite indescribable wink and grin as his request is granted. His attitude
suggests that he has "slipped one over" on somebody. He mounts the steps
to the hospital and the young negro takes his turn with the Doctor as the
coffin, heavy now with its mournful load, is brought out from the room on
the left. At the same moment the officer returns to my rescue; and I
follow him downstairs and out into the fresh air and the sunlight.

Comedy and tragedy seem to jostle each other in prison even as in the
world outside. But the comedy itself is