“That’s no business of mine,” returned the warder; “I don’t make the rules. All I have to do is to see that they are carried out.”
“Much obliged to you for your information,” exclaimed the prisoner; “I’ve been cruelly used.”
“I’ve nothing to do with that,” said the warder, slamming the door of the cell.
“A set of merciless wretches,” ejaculated Peace. “I know the ways of them but too well.”
He sat down on his stool, and buried his face in his hands.
After he had devoured his breakfast the taskmaster-warder paid him a visit, bringing with him the “fiddle,” on which he was to play a tune called “Four pounds of oakum a day.”
It consisted of nothing but a rope and a long crooked nail. He showed Peace how to break up the block of junk, and to divide the strands of the rope.
There was, however, but little necessity for the warder to enter into a description of the work, since the prisoner he was instructing knew the odious business pretty well from his previous experience in the ways of prison life.
However, he affected to be a novice, and listened to all the warder had to say, apparently paying the greatest attention to his instructions.
The four pounds did not look so much after all, but when pulled to pieces and divided into strands, it seemed to grow wonderfully in size, and Peace knew the amount of labour required to pick it.