m run amuck at meal time. Nevertheless, one of these dining-room
chairs soon acquired a history.

As my banishment had come on short notice, I had failed to provide
myself with many things I now desired. My first request was that I be
supplied with stationery. The attendants, acting no doubt on the
doctor's orders, refused to grant my request; nor would they give me a
lead pencil--which, luckily, I did not need, for I happened to have
one. Despite their refusal I managed to get some scraps of paper, on
which I was soon busily engaged in writing notes to those in authority.
Some of these (as I learned later) were delivered, but no attention was
paid to them. No doctor came near me until evening, when the one who
had banished me made his regular round of inspection. When he appeared,
the interrupted conversation of the morning was resumed--that is, by
me--and in a similar vein. I again asked leave to telephone my
conservator. The doctor again refused, and, of course, again I told him
what I thought of him.

My imprisonment pleased me. I was where I most wished to be, and I
busied myself investigating conditions and making mental notes. As the
assistant physician could grant favors to the attendants, and had
authority to discharge them, they did his bidding and continued to
refuse most of my requests. In spite of their unfriendly attitude,
however, I did manage to persuade the supervisor, a kindly man, well
along in years, to deliver a note to the steward. In it I asked him to
come at once, as I wished to talk with him. The steward, whom I looked
upon as a friend, returned no answer and made no visit. I supposed he,
too, had purposely ignored me. As I learned afterwards, both he and the
superintendent were absent, else perhaps I should have been treated in
a less high-handed manner by the assistant physician, who was not
absent.

The next morning, after a renewal of my request and a repeated refusal,
I asked the doctor to send me the "Book of Psalms" which I had left in
my former room. With this request he complied, believing, perhaps, that
some religion would at least do me no harm. I probably read my favorite
psalm, the 45th; but most of my time I spent writing, on the flyleaves,
psalms of my own. And if the value of a psalm is to be measured by the
intensity of feeling portrayed, my compositions of that day rightly
belonged beside the writings of David. My psalms were indited to those
in authority at the hospital, an