the screws last night when he asked me how long you were goin'
to stay here, and I told him that from what I heard you say I judged it
wouldn't be much over two months. Gee! but you should have seen his face!
He was just horrified." And Jack laughs heartily at the recollection.

"Too bad to give the poor fellow a jolt like that. But after all, Jack,
the keepers act a good deal as most any of us would in their places."

This kindly view is not perhaps altogether sincere on my part; but I do
not wish to use my influence to stir up trouble between the keepers and
the prisoners. Without standing up for the keepers when they are
wrong--to do that would be to forfeit the confidence of my companions, I
shall do my best to make the men feel that resistance to authority is both
foolish and useless. Prisoners cannot expect to have things to their
liking; but neither can keepers expect their charges to be blind to
hypocrisy, or to acquiesce in brutality.

In the course of the afternoon I have a long and pleasant talk with Jack
Bell. A convenient post is just at my right, behind which Bell stands,
screened from the view of the Captain. I can talk low without turning my
head, and the officer cannot tell that I am not talking to Murphy. As
everything else is going on as usual and the men working near pay no
attention, not even looking at us, we are able to enjoy quite a prolonged
conversation. Finally, however, the Captain seems to suspect something and
steps down from his platform, but Bell glides off quietly and with an
admirable innocent air of business. The Captain returns to his seat,
apparently satisfied.

After Bell has dropped away, I have a long and interesting discussion with
my partner. For some years I have felt that the principles of
self-government, as developed at the Junior Republic, might probably be
the key to the solution of the prison problem; but as yet I have not been
able to see clearly just how to begin its application. There have seemed
to be almost insuperable difficulties. In this connection Jack makes a
suggestion which supplies a most important link in the chain.

In discussing the various aspects of prison life, the better and the
worse, the harder and the less hard, we reach the subject of the long and
dreary Sundays. Jack agrees with all those with whom I have talked that
the long stretch in the cells, from the conclusion of the chapel service,
between ten-thirty and eleven o'clock Sunday morning u