Not being pleased with his associates, he got up on a table under the window, and looked out on the Pentagon yard.
“What are you up to?” cried one of his fellow-prisoners. “Want to see as much as you can of the blooming place. An’ much good it ell do yer.”
Peace made no reply, but looked out. Walking round the yard, or rather the division nearest to the cell window, he observed a number of prisoners marching round the yard, about five or six yards apart.
In the centre stood an imposing-looking warder in uniform, with a staff like a policeman’s in his hand.
Each man was dressed in a short, loose, ill-fitting jacket and vest, and baggy knickerbockers of drab tweed, with black stripes one and a half inches in width. The lower part of the legs were encased in blue worsted stockings with bright red rings round them, low shoes, and a bright grey and red worsted cap. It struck Peace that they were very much like supernumeraries at a theatre, but all over the garments there were hideous black impressions of the broad arrow, the “crow’s foot” denoting that the articles belonged to her Majesty.
After inspecting the prisoners at exercise, Peace descended from the table, and stood silent and dejected in the cell.
Presently the door was opened, and he and his companions were ordered out.
Peace was directed to go to the end of the passage, where the principal of the receiving ward was standing. He had to undergo the usual formula of the bath. A bundle was handed him, which contained a complete suit of clothes of the same picturesque pattern as those worn by the prisoners he had seen exercising.
He was then called into a room where the doctor was, and here he saw the chief warder—an enormous man with the voice of a Stentor, who looked dreadfully stern and resolute, but who was, nevertheless, a kindly-disposed man enough—this he afterwards found out; there, to his surprise, he was shown a bundle which he at once recognised as the clothes, even to the hat and boots, he had worn before his conviction—his last habiliments of freedom.
“You know what these are, and whom they belong to, I suppose?” said the prison official.