“‘What is that noise?’ I asked the warder who was with me.

“‘Prisoners seeing their friends,’ he answered.  ’Like to have a look at them, sir?’

“He unlocked a small door and, as he threw it open, the distant, muffled sound swelled into a deafening roar.  I passed through the door and found myself in a narrow alley at one end of which a warder was sitting.  The sides of the alley were formed by two immense cages with stout wire bars, one for the prisoners and the other for the visitors; and each cage was lined with faces and hands, all in incessant movement, the faces mouthing and grimacing, and the hands clawing restlessly at the bars.  The uproar was so terrific that no single voice could be distinguished, though every one present was shouting his loudest to make himself heard above the universal din.  The result was a very strange and horrid illusion, for it seemed as if no one was speaking at all, but that the noise came from outside, and that each one of the faces—­low, vicious faces, mostly—­was silently grimacing and gibbering, snapping its jaws and glaring furiously at the occupants of the opposite cage.  It was a frightful spectacle.  I could think of nothing but the monkey-house at the Zoo.  It seemed as if one ought to walk up the alley and offer nuts and pieces of paper to be torn to pieces.”

“Horrible!” exclaimed Miss Gibson.  “And do you mean to say that we shall be turned loose into one of these cages with a herd of other visitors?”

“No.  You are not turned loose anywhere in a prison.  The arrangement is this:  each cage is divided by partitions into a number of small boxes or apartments, which are numbered.  The prisoner is locked in one box and his visitor in the corresponding box opposite.  They are thus confronted, with the width of the alley between them; they can see one another and talk but cannot pass any forbidden articles across—­a very necessary precaution, I need hardly say.”

“Yes, I suppose it is necessary, but it is horrible for decent people.  Surely they ought to be able to discriminate.”

“Why not give it up and let me take a message to Reuben?  He would understand and be thankful to me for dissuading you.”

“No, no,” she said quickly; “the more repulsive it is the greater the necessity for me to go.  He must not be allowed to think that a trifling inconvenience or indignity is enough to scare his friends away.  What building is that ahead?”

We had just swung round from Caledonian Road into a quiet and prosperous-looking suburban street, at the end of which rose the tower of a castellated building.