it, and suppose we are still waiting for the
magistrate, and think of Last Night. "Silence!"--but from no human
voice this time. The whispering, shuffling, and clicking of the court
typewriter ceases, the scene darkens, and the court is blotted out as a
scene is blotted out from the sight of a man who has thrown himself into
a mesmeric trance. And:

Drink--lurid recollection of being "searched"--clang of iron cell
door, and I grope for and crawl on to the slanting plank. Period of
oblivion--or the soul is away in some other world. Clang of cell
door again, and soul returns in a hurry to take heed of another soul,
belonging to a belated drunk on the plank by my side. Other soul says:

"Gotta match?"

So we're not in hell yet.

We fumble and light up. They leave us our pipes, tobacco and matches;
presently, one knocks with his pipe on the iron trap of the door
and asks for water, which is brought in a tin pint-pot. Then follow
intervals of smoking, incoherent mutterings that pass for conversation,
borrowings of matches, knockings with the pannikin on the cell door
wicket or trap for more water, matches, and bail; false and fitful
starts into slumber perhaps--or wild attempts at flight on the part of
our souls into that other world that the sober and sane know nothing of;
and, gradually, suddenly it seems, reason (if this world is reasonable)
comes back.

"What's your trouble!"

"Don't know. Bomb outrage, perhaps."

"Drunk?"

"Yes."

"What's yours!"

"Same boat."

But presently he is plainly uneasy (and I am getting that way, too, to
tell the truth), and, after moving about, and walking up and down in
the narrow space as well as we can, he "rings up" another policeman, who
happens to be the fat one who is to be in charge all night.

"Wot's up here?"

"What have I been up to?"

"Killin' a Chinaman. Go to sleep."

Policeman peers in at me inquiringly, but I forbear to ask questions.

Blankets are thrown in by a friend of mine in the force, though we are
not entitled to them until we are bailed or removed to the "paddock"
(the big drunks' dormitory and dining cell at the Central), and we
proceed to make ourselves comfortable. My mate wonders whether he asked
them to send to his wife to get bail, and hopes he didn't.

They have left our wicket open, seeing, or rather hearing, that we are
quiet. But they have seemingly left some other wickets open also, for
from a neighbouring cell comes the voice of Mrs