“I’m sorry I spoke,” muttered our hero to himself.
The turnkey returned.
“Now, then, No. 34.”
“Well,” cried Peace, “what’s up now?”
“Prisoners shut their own doors,” returned the man. Peace closed the door of his cell.
“Lively,” he ejaculated, “not to say encouraging. Well, I am blest, this is a place a cove’s got to lock himself in, it appears.”
Peace had gone through the usual formula of prison life; one working day was just the same as another.
He did his share of work, and his custodians had no reason to complain of him as far as industrious habits were concerned; he kept his cell scrupulously clean.
The cell in which Peace was confined was small enough in all conscience. It was not much over seven feet in length, and four feet five inches in breadth; its height being a trifle over eight feet. By the side of the door was a small window of thick rough glass, and beneath this was a little flap table, which had to be let down when the hammock was slung.
As may be readily imagined, there was nothing superfluous in this narrow prison house, only just enough to admit of a human being existing in the narrowest possible compass.