ntry. Our garments
were not of a Bond Street pattern; indeed, it takes a very handsome man
to cut an elegant figure in a prison suit. I maliciously remarked to Mr.
Ramsey that he looked like a gentleman out yachting; but somehow he
was unable to see himself in that light. My own clothes were sadly
defective. The biggest shirt-collar they had would not button round my
throat, and the longest stock was so inadequate that a special one had
to be made for me. Nor would the biggest coat fasten across my chest.
A broad expanse of waistcoat yawned between the button and the
button-hole. Fancying that my complaint was merely fractious, the
Deputy-Governor--a tall, powerful man--tried to pull them together, and
miserably failed. "Well," he said, "it's the largest in stock, and we
can't give you what we haven't got." "Yes," I exclaimed, "that's all
very well; but if I go about with an open throat like this I shall get
an attack of bronchitis. Pray let me have a stock as soon as possible.
And do you really mean that you can't possibly find me a bigger coat?"
The Deputy-Governor eyed me smilingly as he said, "Come, Mr. Foote,
don't be so particular; the clothes don't quite fit you now, but they
_will_." And the worst of it was _they did_. My coat, however, was
always tight across the chest. I changed my trousers and waistcoat as I
grew slimmer, but the solid structure of my back and chest (built up by
athletics in youth and sustained by lecturing in manhood) always taxed
the resources of the establishment in the matter of coats.

One by one we went into the booking-clerk's office again, where we were
scaled and our weights entered in a book. Then we had an interview
with the doctor, whose duty it was to examine us to see whether we were
suffering from any complaint. I was pronounced quite sound. Dr. Gordon
spoke pleasantly then, as he always did afterwards. "I suppose you've
lived pretty well?" he said. "Not epicureanly," I answered, "but still
well." "I'm afraid you won't like our hospitality," he rejoined. "I
suppose not," I replied grimly. "However," he continued, "I shall put
you on third-class diet at once, and order you a mattress." What the
third-class diet was the reader shall learn presently. The second-class
diet, which I should otherwise have had for the first month, consists of
nothing but bread and sloppy meal-and-water, three times a day. Mr. Kemp
had to put up with this wretched fare for a while, and he tells me he
w