A few minutes afterwards, before cocoa, Black, trotting in heavy haste here and there in the gallery, looked in to say: “Bath to-night”.
And Hogarth: “Warder! a word with you! sorry, I have trodden on my can....”
Upon which Black went stooping to look, the can now standing on the low shelf; and as he said “I shall report this”, Hogarth, stooping, with quick deftness had the vials picked from the thick pocket.
“Well, fall in”, said Black to him; “better take your precious can, and give it to a bath-room warder for the store-keeper to change”.
Hogarth, as he passed out, placed the vials on the shelf over his door, where they were secure, since cells were never searched; and, the bathers having formed in single file, five feet between man and man, away they moved and down—away and down—lost in space, treading the journey of galleries, till, at the bottom, they passed up a vaulted corridor, monastically dim, across a yard open to starry sky, and into the door of a semi-detached, steep-roofed building, which was the bath-house.
A row of thirty-five baths; a very long bench for undressing; in the space between bench and baths three warders walking: such was the bath-house: all whitewashed, galvanized iron, and rigour; but for its old record of uneventfulness a scandal was preparing that night.
Outside the door a fourth officer paced, and a cord within rang a little bell in one click, to tell when, the bathing over, the door should be unlocked outside.
After giving up his can near the door to a warder, who laid it on the bench, Hogarth undressed slowly; got off his boots; and now had on only knickerbockers and stockings: he got off his stockings.
And the moment his bare soles touched the floor, he felt himself once more agile on the ratlines, larky for a shore-row, handy in any squall. Let them all come, therefore! He smiled; passed his palms down his crib of lean ribs.
“Good gracious, why don't you hurry up there...?” an officer came asking, stooping.