“I heard your voice, sir,” said Peace, in a soft and submissive tone. “What do you wish me to do?”
“Humph! You are one of the last batch, I suppose?”
“Yes, sir. Only came in to-day.”
“Ah, I see. Well, then, put out your broom like that,” and here he pointed to the broom at the next cell; “and your tin mug and plate.”
“Oh, I didn’t know,” returned our hero.
“Mind you attend to what I say now you do know, my man.”
“Yes, sir.”
While the warder was explaining this, the principal in the hall below was shouting to him for his “roll,” the number of men he had upon his landing.
This the warder ascertained by running along the landing and counting the brooms.
As soon as the roll is called the brooms should be taken in. It is, to say the truth, not a very dignified way—for a man to put in his appearance by means of a broom—but dignity, or even common civility, is never thought of in the treatment of convicts.