ng enemy. And here we have an organized
System which in cold blood forbids the giving of a few drops to the
parched lips of a sick lad, to save him from misery and madness! And if I
am almost stifling with anger at the outrage, what must those men feel who
are really suffering? What must those have felt who in the past have been
kept here day after day, slowly dying of thirst or going mad on one gill
of water in twenty-four hours?

Is it imagination that the very air here seems to be tainted with unseen
but malign and potent influences, bred of the cruelty and suffering--the
hatred and madness which these cells have harbored? If ever there were a
spot haunted by spirits of evil, this must surely be the place. I have
been shown through dungeons that seemed to reek with the misery and
wretchedness with which some lawless medieval tyrant had filled them; but
here is a dungeon where the tyrant is an unreasoning, unreachable System,
based upon the law and tolerated by good, respectable, religious men and
women. Even more then than the dungeons of Naples is this "the negation of
God"; for its foundation is not the brutal whim of a degenerate despot,
but the ignorance and indifference of a free and civilized people. Or
rather, this is worse than a negation of God, it is a betrayal of God.

After duly waking my companions the keeper amuses himself by fussing with
the steam pipes. The vault was already disagreeably close and hot; but he
chooses to make it still hotter, and none of us dares to remonstrate. Then
he turns out the light and goes his way, and he certainly carries with him
my own hearty maledictions, if not those of my fellow prisoners.

It is hopeless to think of going to sleep again at once, although my head
is thick and my eyes heavy with fatigue. So again I sit close to the
grated door and open up communication with Joe. As usual, he is entirely
willing to give his attention, and enters readily into conversation.

"Hey, Tom! Do you want to know my name? It's Joseph Matto. Funny name for
an Irishman, ain't it? Well, you know, it ain't my real name. My real
name's McNulty. But you see it was this way. When my case came up in
court, down in New York, they called out, 'Joseph Matto'; and the cop
said, 'Here, you, get up there!' I said, 'That ain't my name'; and he
said, 'Never you mind, get up!' So you see I got some other fellow's name,
but I thought I might as well keep it, and so I have ever since.

"But it's al