as they should continue
to treat me as the vilest of criminals, I should do my best to complete
the illusion. The burden of proving my sanity was placed upon me. I was
told that so soon as I became polite and meek and lowly I should find
myself in possession of my clothes and of certain privileges. In every
instance I must earn my reward before being entrusted with it. If the
doctor, instead of demanding of me all the negative virtues in the
catalogue of spineless saints, had given me my clothes on the condition
that they would be taken from me again if I so much as removed a
button, his course would doubtless have been productive of good
results. Thus I might have had my clothes three weeks earlier than I
did, and so been spared much suffering from the cold.

I clamored daily for a lead pencil. This little luxury represents the
margin of happiness for hundreds of the patients, just as a plug or
package of tobacco represents the margin of happiness for thousands of
others; but for seven weeks no doctor or attendant gave me one. To be
sure, by reason of my somewhat exceptional persistence and ingenuity, I
managed to be always in possession of some substitute for a pencil,
surreptitiously obtained, a fact which no doubt had something to do
with the doctor's indifference to my request. But my inability to
secure a pencil in a legitimate way was a needless source of annoyance
to me, and many of my verbal indiscretions were directly inspired by
the doctor's continued refusal.

It was an assistant physician, other than the one regularly in charge
of my case, who at last relented and presented me with a good, whole
lead pencil. By so doing he placed himself high on my list of
benefactors; for that little shaftlike implement, magnified by my
lively appreciation, became as the very axis of the earth.

XXIV

A few days before Christmas my most galling deprivation was at last
removed. That is, my clothes were restored. These I treated with great
respect. Not so much as a thread did I destroy. Clothes, as is known,
have a sobering and civilizing effect, and from the very moment I was
again provided with presentable outer garments my conduct rapidly
improved. The assistant physician with whom I had been on such variable
terms of friendship and enmity even took me for a sleigh-ride. With
this improvement came other privileges or, rather, the granting of my
rights. Late in December I was permitted to send letters to my
c