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can't turn a cell into a business office-- that's not possible. It would break up the order of the
place. Still, there's no reason why you shouldn't see some of your friends now and then. As for
your mail--well, that will have to be opened in the ordinary way for the time being, anyhow. I'll
have to see about that. I can't promise too much. You'll have to wait until you come out of this
block and down-stairs. Some of the cells have a yard there; if there are any empty--" The
warden cocked his eye wisely, and Cowperwood saw that his tot was not to be as bad as he
had anticipated--though bad enough. The warden spoke to him about the different trades he
might follow, and asked him to think about the one he would prefer. "You want to have
something to keep your hands busy, whatever else you want. You'll find you'll need that.
Everybody here wants to work after a time. I notice that."
Cowperwood understood and thanked Desmas profusely. The horror of idleness in silence and
in a cell scarcely large enough to turn around in comfortably had already begun to creep over
him, and the thought of being able to see Wingate and Steger frequently, and to have his mail
reach him, after a time, untampered with, was a great relief. He was to have his own underwear,
silk and wool-- thank God!--and perhaps they would let him take off these shoes after a while.
With these modifications and a trade, and perhaps the little yard which Desmas had referred to,
his life would be, if not ideal, at least tolerable. The prison was still a prison, but it looked as
though it might not be so much of a terror to him as obviously it must be to many.
During the two weeks in which Cowperwood was in the "manners squad," in care of Chapin, he
learned nearly as much as he ever learned of the general nature of prison life; for this was not
an ordinary penitentiary in the sense that the prison yard, the prison squad, the prison lock-step,
the prison dining-room, and prison associated labor make the ordinary penitentiary. There was,
for him and for most of those confined there, no general prison life whatsoever. The large
majority were supposed to work silently in their cells at the particular tasks assigned them, and
not to know anything of the remainder of the life which went on around them, the rule of this
prison being solitary confinement, and few being permitted to work at the limited number of
outside menial tasks provided. Indeed, as he sensed and as old Chapin soon informed him, not
more than seventy-five of the four hundred prisoners confined here were so employed, and not
all of these regularly--cooking, gardening in season, milling, and general cleaning being the only
avenues of escape from solitude. Even those who so worked were strictly forbidden to talk, and
although they did not have to wear the objectionable hood when actually employed, they were
supposed to wear it in going to and from their work. Cowperwood saw them occasionally
tramping by his cell door, and it struck him as strange, uncanny, grim. He wished sincerely at
times since old Chapin was so genial and talkative that he were to be under him permanently;
but it was not to be.
His two weeks soon passed--drearily enough in all conscience but they passed, interlaced with
his few commonplace tasks of bed-making, floor-sweeping, dressing, eating, undressing, rising
at five-thirty, and retiring at nine, washing his several dishes after each meal, etc. He thought he
would never get used to the food. Breakfast, as has been said, was at six-thirty, and consisted
of coarse black bread made of bran and some white flour, and served with black coffee. Dinner
was at eleven-thirty, and consisted of bean or vegetable soup, with some coarse meat in it, and
the same bread. Supper was at six, of tea and bread, very strong tea and the same bread--no
butter, no milk, no sugar. Cowperwood did not smoke, so the small allowance of tobacco which
was permitted was without value to him. Steger called in every day for two or three weeks, and
after the second day, Stephen Wingate, as his new business associate, was permitted to see
him also--once every day, if he wished, Desmas stated, though the latter felt he was stretching a
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