s
conducted upstairs to my apartment. Before leaving, however, I shook
hands with my companions, although it was in direct defiance of the
"rules and regulations."

My cell was Number One. It was considered the place of honor. I was
informed that it was once tenanted by the elder of two famous brother
forgers, who spent three weeks there preparing his defence and writing
an extraordinary number of letters. This information was communicated
to me with an air of solemnity as though so eminent a criminal had
left behind him the flavor of his greatness, and had in some measure
consecrated the spot.

The gas was lit, and the officer withdrew, banging the door as he went.
He seemed to love the sound, and I subsequently discovered that this was
a characteristic of his tribe. Only two men in Holloway Gaol ever shut
my door gently. They were the gallant Governor and a clerical _locum
tenens_ who officiated during the chaplain's frequent absence in
search of recreation or health. Colonel Milman closed the door like
a gentleman. Mr. Stubbs closed it like an undertaker. He was the most
nervous man I ever met. But I must not anticipate. More of him anon.

Prison cells, I had always known, are rather narrow apartments, but the
realisation was nevertheless a rough one. My domicile, which included
kitchen, bedroom, sitting-room and water-closet, was about ten feet
long, six feet wide, and nine feet high. At the end opposite the door
there was a window, containing perhaps three square feet of thick opaque
glass. Attached to the wall on the left side was a flap-table, about two
feet by one, and under it a low stool. In the right corner, behind the
door, were a couple of narrow semi-circular shelves, containing a wooden
salt-cellar full of ancient salt, protected from the air and dust by a
brown paper lid, through which a piece of knotted string was passed to
serve as a knob. The walls were whitewashed, and hanging against them
were a pair of printed cards, which on examination I found to be the
dietary scale and the rules and regulations. The floor was black and
shiny. It was probably concreted, and I discovered the next day that it
was blackleaded and polished. Finally I detected an iron ring in each
wall, facing each other, about two feet from the ground. "What are these
for?" I thought. "They would be convenient for hanging if they were
three feet higher. Perhaps they are placed there to tantalise desperate
unfortunates who might b