“Well, you won’t get in if I can help it,” I replied, as I braced my iron bedstead against the door.

My defiance and defences gave the attendants the excuse for which they had said they were waiting; and my success in keeping them out for two or three minutes only served to enrage them.  By the time they had gained entrance they had become furies.  One was a young man of twenty-seven.  Physically he was a fine specimen of manhood; morally he was deficient—­thanks to the dehumanizing effect of several years in the employ of different institutions whose officials countenanced improper methods of care and treatment.  It was he who now attacked me in the dark of my prison room.  The head attendant stood by, holding a lantern which shed a dim light.

The door once open, I offered no further resistance.  First I was knocked down.  Then for several minutes I was kicked about the room—­struck, kneed and choked.  My assailant even attempted to grind his heel into my cheek.  In this he failed, for I was there protected by a heavy beard which I wore at that time.  But my shins, elbows, and back were cut by his heavy shoes; and had I not instinctively drawn up my knees to my elbows for the protection of my body, I might have been seriously, perhaps fatally, injured.  As it was, I was severely cut and bruised.  When my strength was nearly gone, I feigned unconsciousness.  This ruse alone saved me from further punishment, for usually a premeditated assault is not ended until the patient is mute and helpless.  When they had accomplished their purpose, they left me huddled in a corner to wear out the night as best I might—­to live or die for all they cared.

Strange as it may seem, I slept well.  But not at once.  Within five minutes I was busily engaged writing an account of the assault.  A trained war correspondent could not have pulled himself together in less time.  As usual I had recourse to my bit of contraband lead pencil, this time a pencil which had been smuggled to me the very first day of my confinement in the Bull Pen by a sympathetic fellow-patient.  When he had pushed under my cell door that little implement of war, it had loomed as large in my mind as a battering-ram.  Paper I had none; but I had previously found walls to be a fair substitute.  I therefore now selected and wrote upon a rectangular spot—­about three feet by two—­which marked the reflection of a light in the corridor just outside my transom.

The next morning, when the assistant physician appeared, he was accompanied as usual by the guilty head attendant who, on the previous night, had held the lantern.

“Doctor,” I said, “I have something to tell you,”—­and I glanced significantly at the attendant.  “Last night I had a most unusual experience.  I have had many imaginary experiences during the past two years and a half, and it may be that last night’s was not real.  Perhaps the whole thing was phantasmagoric—­like what I used to see during the first months of my illness.  Whether it was so or not I shall leave you to judge.  It just happens to be my impression that I was brutally assaulted last night.  If it was a dream, it is the first thing of the kind that ever left visible evidence on my body.”