ellow like you--than to mind a
bit of hunger. Boys like you ought to enlist; that'd make a man of you
in no time. But no.... I know you; you won't.... You'd sooner loaf about
and pick up what you can--sooner than serve His Majesty. Well, well,
there's no compulsion--not yet; but you should think over it. Come and
see me, if you like, when you've done your time, and we'll see what can
be done. That'd be better than loafing about and picking up tins of
salmon, eh?"

"Well, I've no more to say. But you just think over it. And we'll give
you fourteen days."

* * * * *

Then as Frank went out he saw the three magistrates lean back in
conversation.

(III)

I find it very hard to explain, even to myself, the extraordinary
depression that fell upon Frank during his fourteen days. He could
hardly bear even to speak of it afterwards, and I find in his diary no
more than a line or two, and those as bald as possible. Apparently it
was no kind of satisfaction to him to know that the whole thing was
entirely his own doing, or that it was the thought of Gertie that had
made him, in the first instance, take the tin from the Major. Yet it was
not that there was any sense of guilt, or even of mistake. One would
have thought that from everybody's point of view, and particularly
Gertie's, it would be an excellent thing for the Major to go to prison
for a bit. It would certainly do him no harm, and it would be a real
opportunity to separate the girl from his company. As for any wrong in
his pleading guilty, he defended it (I must say, with some adroitness)
by saying that it was universally acknowledged that the plea of "Not
Guilty" is merely formal, and in no way commits one to its intrinsic
truth (and he is right there, at least according to Moral Theology as
well as common sense) and, therefore, that the alternative plea is also
merely formal.

And yet he was depressed by his fourteen days to the verge of
melancholia.

There are several contributory causes that may be alleged.

First, there is the extreme ignominy of all the circumstances, beginning
with the paternal scolding in court, in the presence of grocers and
persons who threw clogs, continuing with the dreary journey by rail, in
handcuffs, and the little crowds that gathered to laugh or stare, and
culminating with the details of the prison life. It is not pleasant for
a cleanly man to be suspected of dirt, to be bathed and examined all