You affix your signature to a statement acknowledging that you have handed the warder the sum of four and twopence. Another warder enters--an older man. He addresses you,--
"What's your name?" You tell him. "Your age? your religion? your trade?" You allow that you are a poor devil of an author. He goes. The first warder favours you again.
"Take your boots off! Come here!" You step on to a weighing-machine. He registers your weight. "Put your boots on again. Come along with me, the two of you."
He snatches up your bag, you follow him, accompanied by the gentleman who wore the handcuffs. Unlocking a door, he leads the way down a flight of stone steps to cells which apparently are beneath the level of the ground. "In there!" Your companion goes into one of them. The door is banged upon him. "In here!" You go into another. The door is banged on you. You find yourself alone in a whitewashed cell which contains absolutely nothing but a sort of wooden frame which is raised, perhaps, twelve inches from the floor of red and black lozenge-shaped tiles. After some three or four minutes the door is opened to admit the older warder. He hands you some books--without a word. And, without a word, he goes out again and bangs the door. He has left you in possession of a Bible, a prayer book, hymn book, an ancient and ragged volume of the Penny Post--in its way a curiosity--and a copy of Quentin Durward--Routledge's three-and-sixpenny edition, almost as good as new. Presently the first warder reappears.
"What property have you got about you?"
You give him all you have, he returning your handkerchief. Having given him everything, he satisfies himself that you have nothing more by feeling in your pockets.
"Can't I have my work? It is in my bag. Can't I work while I am here?"
"Ask all questions when you see the governor to-morrow." He vanishes. Another five minutes, he appears again. "Come along. Bring your books!"
You go into the corridor. Another person is there--in a brick-coloured costume on which is stamped, at irregular intervals, the "broad arrow." You recognise the gentleman who wore the handcuffs.
"Here you are!" The warder hands you a distinctly dirty round tin, holding, as you afterwards learn, a pint, filled with something which is greyish brown in hue, and a small loaf, of a shape, size and colour the like of which you have never seen before. The warder observes that you are eyeing the contents of the tin distrustfully. "That's good oatmeal, though you mayn't like the look of it. But it isn't the body you've got to think about, it's the soul--that's everything."