ons of the dark cells, and such the nature of their
offenses and punishments. These were the voices and personalities which
came through the bars of my iron cage, reflected from the opposite wall.

It is a very curious experience--getting suddenly upon an intimate footing
with a number of people whom you cannot see, acquainted only with their
voices. The vaulted room gives each sound with peculiar distinctness, but
I cannot tell where any voice comes from; they all sound equally
near--equally far off. It is the same strange effect I noticed in my
regular cell in the north wing. And as I think of that cell it seems by
contrast rather homelike and pleasant, but very far away. I feel as if I
had been in this place a large part of my natural life. At any rate I
ought to be getting out before very long. And that reminds me----

"Hello, Number Four!" I call out. "Wasn't there another fellow here, a
chap named Lavinsky, who was brought down on Wednesday evening?"

"Sure there was," answers the voice of Number Four. "They took him away
about an hour before you came."

"What sort of a fellow was he?"

"Oh, he was a bug, all right. Threw his bread out of his cell and his
water all over, and hollered a good deal. I guess they knew you was
comin', didn't they? That's the reason they took him out. And, say! What
do you think they wanted to do with Abey and me?" he continues. "They took
us over to the north wing and wanted to put us in a couple of those screen
cells. But nix for us! We refused to go into 'em. Said that Superintendent
Riley had ordered those cells stopped, and they wasn't legal. Then Captain
Martin sort of laughed and brought us over here. Seems as if they didn't
want you to make our acquaintance, don't it?"

And it certainly does seem that way.[15]

On the whole, thanks to my agreeable companions, the time has passed so
quickly that I am rather surprised when I hear the farther door unlocked
and opened and steps coming along the passage. This must be Grant arriving
to set me free. Now I must settle in my mind a question which has been
troubling me for the last hour or so. Shall I go back to my cell or shall
I spend the night down here?

On the one hand, is my rising anger and horror of the place, the evil
influence of which I begin to feel both in body and in mind; on the other
hand is the sense that I am nearer the heart of this Prison Problem than I
have yet been; nearer, I believe, than any outsider has eve