ls or I
should be afraid of being shut in for the day. The Captain soon gets the
bar raised, however, and the usual routine happens; walking along the
gallery with our heavy buckets, descending the iron stairs, waiting in the
passage at the door of the north wing, and marching down the yard to the
sewage disposal building. Then the rapid cleaning of the buckets, leaving
them to be aired and disinfected at the stands; and the march back to our
cells. It is, as I supposed, a gray, cloudy day, with rain likely to come.
If it does, there is no change of clothing whatever in my cell, and no way
of getting one that I know of; so I hope it will not rain. But what do
these poor fellows do after marching through the yard in a real drenching
shower? Work until they're dry, I suppose, if they get wet on the way to
the shop; or go to bed in their cells if they get wet on the way back.
This holds out to me a cheerful prospect of wet clothes all day and
fourteen hours in bed in case it rains hard; for the distance from the
cell block to the basket-shop would be a long walk in the rain.

What an admirable system! Excellently calculated, I should imagine, to
produce the largest possible crop of pneumonia in the shortest possible
space of time.

Upon my return to the cell I do my morning sweeping. I do not know where
all the dust comes from, as no one else uses the cell, and I can't see
where I collect any; but dusty it is every morning.

Then I have a call from Dickinson, the Chaplain's assistant. The poor
fellow has a letter from the man who had promised him work, saying that
the factory is running slack and there is no knowing how soon his job will
be ready for him. He had counted on Saturday being his day of release, his
wife was coming to meet him, and all his plans were made for a joyful
family reunion. Now it must all go by the board. It is a heart-breaking
disappointment, but he bears up bravely.

As it happens I may be able to help him. At any rate I promise to write a
letter to his proposed employer. The poor fellow grasps at this slight
comfort and expresses his gratitude most fervently. Then I turn my
attention to breakfast.

Wednesday's breakfast consists of hash, with the usual accompaniments of
boot-leg and punk. I was told in the shop yesterday what to expect. The
smell of the mess-room is beginning to be unpleasant, perhaps owing to the
change in temperature. If so, what it must be on a moist warm day in
summer, or