As the door closed, I noticed that the mug was steaming, and found that
I was not to have prison fare though I was a prisoner, for my breakfast
was precisely the same as that of the other boys.

"I can't touch it," I said, "It is impossible to eat."

But I was feverishly thirsty, and I took up the mug of milk, just made
warm by the addition of some boiling water. It was pleasantly sweet,
too, and I half fancied that Cook had put in an extra quantity of sugar.

More from habit than anything else, for I felt sick and full of distaste
for food, I broke off a piece of bread and butter and began to eat it
mechanically, and now knew that I was right, for, instead of the salt
butter we generally had, this was fresh and sweet. Cook had certainly
been favouring me, and that scrap led to the finishing of the slice, and
finally to the disappearance of all that was on the plate, while the
last drop of milk and water was drained from the big mug.

As soon as the breakfast was finished, a morbid feeling of vexation came
over me. I was angry because I had touched it, and wished that I had
sulked, and shown myself too much injured to go on as if nothing had
happened. But it was too late then.

After a while, Mr Rebble came back, looking very severe. He watched
the maid as she took the tray, but the girl gave me a sympathetic look,
and then I was once more left alone.

Hard people think they do not,--they say, "Oh, he's only a boy; he'll
soon forget,"--but boys suffer mentally as keenly, or more keenly, than
grown people. Of course they do, for everything about them is young,
tender, and easily wounded. I know that they soon recover from some
mental injury. Naturally. They are young and elastic, and the sapling,
if bent down, springs up again, but for the time they suffer cruelly.

I know I did, shut up there in disgrace, and, as I sat or walked about
my prison, it made no difference to me that it was a plainly furnished,
neat bedroom, for it was as prison-like to me in my vein as if the floor
had been stone, the door of iron-clamped oak with rusty hinges. And as
I moved about the place, I began to understand how prisoners gladly made
friends with spiders, mice, and rats, or employed themselves cutting
their names on the walls, carving pieces of wood, or writing long
histories.

But I had no insects or animals to amuse me, no wood to carve, no stone
walls upon which to chisel my name.

I had only been a prisoner for