The “Homelike” Cell
On another occasion a benevolent-looking old lady, having given everything and everybody as minute an inspection as was possible, expressed herself as being charmed, remarking:
“Everything is so nice and homelike!”
I have often wondered what that good lady’s home was like.
A little philosophy is useful, a saving grace, even in prison; but people have such different ways of expressing sympathy. A visitor, who I have no doubt intended to be sympathetic, noticing the letter “L” on my arm, inquired:
“How long a time have you to do?”
“I have just completed ten years,” was my reply.
“Oh, well,” cheerfully responded the sympathetic one, “you have done half your time, haven’t you? The remaining ten years will soon slip by”; and the visitor passed on, blissfully ignorant of the sword she had unwittingly thrust into my aching heart. Even if a prisoner has little or no hope of a mitigation, it is not pleasant to have an old wound ruthlessly handled, and ten years’ imprisonment as lightly spoken of as ten days might be.