Jurgis a wild and appalling occupation to think about.  A man he had met, his cell mate had replied—­one thing leads to another.  Didn’t he ever wonder about his family, Jurgis asked.  Sometimes, the other answered, but not often—­he didn’t allow it.  Thinking about it would make it no better.  This wasn’t a world in which a man had any business with a family; sooner or later Jurgis would find that out also, and give up the fight and shift for himself.

Jurgis was so transparently what he pretended to be that his cell mate was as open with him as a child; it was pleasant to tell him adventures, he was so full of wonder and admiration, he was so new to the ways of the country.  Duane did not even bother to keep back names and places—­he told all his triumphs and his failures, his loves and his griefs.  Also he introduced Jurgis to many of the other prisoners, nearly half of whom he knew by name.  The crowd had already given Jurgis a name—­they called him “he stinker.”  This was cruel, but they meant no harm by it, and he took it with a goodnatured grin.

Our friend had caught now and then a whiff from the sewers over which he lived, but this was the first time that he had ever been splashed by their filth.  This jail was a Noah’s ark of the city’s crime—­there were murderers, “hold-up men” and burglars, embezzlers, counterfeiters and forgers, bigamists, “shoplifters,” “confidence men,” petty thieves and pickpockets, gamblers and procurers, brawlers, beggars, tramps and drunkards; they were black and white, old and young, Americans and natives of every nation under the sun.  There were hardened criminals and innocent men too poor to give bail; old men, and boys literally not yet in their teens.  They were the drainage of the great festering ulcer of society; they were hideous to look upon, sickening to talk to.  All life had turned to rottenness and stench in them—­love was a beastliness, joy was a snare, and God was an imprecation.  They strolled here and there about the courtyard, and Jurgis listened to them.  He was ignorant and they were wise; they had been everywhere and tried everything.  They could tell the whole hateful story of it, set forth the inner soul of a city in which justice and honor, women’s bodies and men’s souls, were for sale in the marketplace, and human beings writhed and fought and fell upon each other like wolves in a pit; in which lusts were raging fires, and men were fuel, and humanity was festering and stewing and wallowing in its own corruption.  Into this wild-beast tangle these men had been born without their consent, they had taken part in it because they could not help it; that they were in jail was no disgrace to them, for the game had never been fair, the dice were loaded.  They were swindlers and thieves of pennies and dimes, and they had been trapped and put out of the way by the swindlers and thieves of millions of dollars.

To most of this Jurgis tried not to listen.  They frightened him with their savage mockery; and all the while his heart was far away, where his loved ones were calling.  Now and then in the midst of it his thoughts would take flight; and then the tears would come into his eyes—­and he would be called back by the jeering laughter of his companions.