had I had an attendant
with the wisdom and ability to humor me and permit me to keep my
priceless corn cobs, the fight in question, and the worse events that
followed, would probably not have occurred--not that day, nor ever, had
I at all times been properly treated by those in charge of me.

So again I found myself in the violent ward--but this time not because
of any desire to investigate it. Art and literature being now more
engrossing than my plans for reform, I became, in truth, an unwilling
occupant of a room and a ward devoid of even a suggestion of the
aesthetic. The room itself was clean, and under other circumstances
might have been cheerful. It was twelve feet long, seven feet wide, and
twelve high. A cluster of incandescent lights, enclosed in a
semi-spherical glass globe, was attached to the ceiling. The walls were
bare and plainly wainscotted, and one large window, barred outside,
gave light. At one side of the door was an opening a foot square with a
door of its own which could be unlocked only from without, and through
which food could be passed to a supposedly dangerous patient. Aside
from a single bed, the legs of which were screwed to the floor, the
room had no furniture.

The attendant, before locking me in, searched me and took from me
several lead pencils; but the stub of one escaped his vigilance.
Naturally, to be taken from a handsomely furnished apartment and thrust
into such a bare and unattractive room as this caused my already heated
blood to approach the boiling point. Consequently, my first act was to
send a note to the physician who regularly had charge of my case,
requesting him to visit me as soon as he should arrive, and I have
every reason to believe that the note was delivered. Whether or not
this was so, a report of the morning's fight and my transfer must have
reached him by some one of several witnesses. While waiting for an
answer, I busied myself writing, and as I had no stationery I wrote on
the walls. Beginning as high as I could reach, I wrote in columns, each
about three feet wide. Soon the pencil became dull. But dull pencils
are easily sharpened on the whetstone of wit. Stifling acquired traits,
I permitted myself to revert momentarily to a primitive expedient. I
gnawed the wood quite from the pencil, leaving only the graphite core.
With a bit of graphite a hand guided by the unerring insolence of
elation may artistically damn all men and things. That I am inclined to
bel