or fifty of us, naked as Kipling's heroes
who stormed Lungtungpen. To search us was easy. There were only our
shoes and ourselves. Two or three rash spirits, who had doubted the
barbers, had the goods found on them--which goods, namely, tobacco,
pipes, matches, and small change, were quickly confiscated. This over,
our new clothes were brought to us--stout prison shirts, and coats and
trousers conspicuously striped. I had always lingered under the
impression that the convict stripes were put on a man only after he
had been convicted of a felony. I lingered no longer, but put on the
insignia of shame and got my first taste of marching the lock-step.

In single file, close together, each man's hands on the shoulders of
the man in front, we marched on into another large hall. Here we were
ranged up against the wall in a long line and ordered to strip our
left arms. A youth, a medical student who was getting in his practice
on cattle such as we, came down the line. He vaccinated just about
four times as rapidly as the barbers shaved. With a final caution to
avoid rubbing our arms against anything, and to let the blood dry so
as to form the scab, we were led away to our cells. Here my pal and I
parted, but not before he had time to whisper to me, "Suck it out."

As soon as I was locked in, I sucked my arm clean. And afterward I saw
men who had not sucked and who had horrible holes in their arms into
which I could have thrust my fist. It was their own fault. They could
have sucked.

In my cell was another man. We were to be cell-mates. He was a young,
manly fellow, not talkative, but very capable, indeed as splendid a
fellow as one could meet with in a day's ride, and this in spite of
the fact that he had just recently finished a two-year term in some
Ohio penitentiary.

Hardly had we been in our cell half an hour, when a convict sauntered
down the gallery and looked in. It was my pal. He had the freedom of
the hall, he explained. He was unlocked at six in the morning and not
locked up again till nine at night. He was in with the "push" in that
hall, and had been promptly appointed a trusty of the kind technically
known as "hall-man." The man who had appointed him was also a prisoner
and a trusty, and was known as "First Hall-man." There were thirteen
hall-men in that hall. Ten of them had charge each of a gallery of
cells, and over them were the First, Second, and Third Hall-men.

We newcomers were to stay in our cells