The warden assumed a jocular air.
“You’ll be disappointed,” he warned. “It’s down in the basement, where prisoners who want to do so can yell and scream to their hearts’ content without disturbing anyone. A trifle dark, of course, but if to some it is hell it is because they choose to make it so. If you really want to see it, come ahead. It’s not occupied, however.”
He did not mention that he had seen to that. With all this uproar about the management of the prison, it wasn’t safe to take chances. The commission, he had foreseen, might decide to make a real investigation, and you never could tell in just what condition a man would be after several hours in “solitary.”
“THERE you are gentlemen?” he said, with a flourish of the hand when a “trusty” had switched on the lights in the basement. “Not one dark cell, but half a dozen.”
He stood back as the members of the commission crowded forward and peered into the dark recesses. Over each doorway a single electric bulb shone weakly, far too weakly for the rays to penetrate into the corners. The solid, bolt-studded doors stood open, formidable and forbidding.
“Any of you want to try it?” asked the warden from the background.
“Sure, let Blalock take a whirl at one of them,” suggested the secretary. “His conscience ought to be clear enough not to trouble him. Go on, doctor; try it and let us know how it feels. I’d do it myself, but I don’t dare risk my conscience.”
Blalock, standing just inside the doorway of one of the cells, turned and for a moment surveyed them in silence.
“Your suggestion, of course, was made in jest,” he said. “But,” a sudden ring came into his voice, “I am going to take you up on it! No,” as a chorus of exclamations came from the others, “my mind is quite made up. Warden, I want this as realistic as possible. You will please provide me with a suit of the regulation convict clothing.”