The officer laughed. “Sleep? They don't want to sleep. What they want to do is to set up all night, and talk it over.”
Both of the visitors laughed.
“Some of the cells,” resumed the officer, “have two bunks, but we hardly ever put more than one in a cell.”
The visitors noticed that a section of the rail was removed in each door near the floor.
“That's to put a dipper of water through, or anything,” explained the officer. “There!” he continued, showing them Lemuel's door; “see how the rails are bent there? You wouldn't think a man could squeeze through there, but we found a fellow half out o' that one night—backwards. Captain came down with a rattan and made it hot for him.”
The visitors laughed, and Lemuel, in his cell, shuddered.
“I never saw anything so astonishingly clean,” said one of the gentlemen. “And do you keep the gas burning here all night?”
“Yes; calculate to give 'em plenty of light,” said the officer, with comfortable satisfaction in the visitor's complimentary tone.
“And the sanitary arrangements seem to be perfect, doctor,” said the other visitor.
“Oh, perfect.”