“What for?”

“You are to write a story.”

“But I never wrote one in my life.”

“Then this will be the first.”

“Oh, I’ll try, sir.  I’ve tried a hundred things in my life and they none of them proved so hard as they looked.  What kind of story?”

“The only kind of story that is worth a button—­a true story—­the story of Thomas Robinson, alias Scott, alias Lyon, alias etc.”

“Then you should have brought a ream instead of a quire.”

“No!  I want to read it when it is written.  Now write the truth—­do not dress or cook your facts.  I shall devour them raw with twice the relish, and they will do you ten times the good.  And intersperse no humbug, no sham penitence.  When your own life lies thus spread out before you like a map, you will find you regret many things you have done, and view others with calmer and wiser eyes; for self-review is a healthy process.  Write down these honest reflections, but don’t overdo it—­don’t write a word you don’t feel.  It will amuse you while you are at it.”

“That it will.”

“It will interest me more than the romance of a carpet writer who never saw life, and it may do good to other prisoners.”

“I want to begin.”

“I know you do, creature of impulse!  Let me feel your pulse again.  Ah! it has gained about ten.”

“Ten, your reverence?  Fifty, you mean.  It is you for putting life into a poor fellow and keeping him from despair.  It is not the first time you have saved me.  The devil hates you more than all the other parsons, for you are as ingenious in good as he is in mischief.”

In the midst of this original eulogy Mr. Eden left the cell suddenly with an aching heart, for the man’s words reminded him that for all his skill and zeal a boy of fifteen years lay dead of despair hard by.  He went, but he left two good things behind him—­occupation and hope.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE inexperienced in jails would take for granted that the death of Josephs gave Mr. Hawes’s system a fatal check.  No such thing.  He was staggered.  So was Pharaoh staggered several times, yet he always recovered himself in twenty-four hours.  Hawes did not take so long as that.  A suicide was no novelty under his system.  Six hours after he found his victim dead he had a man and a boy crucified in the yard, swore horribly at Fry, who, for the first time in his life, was behind time, and tore out of his hands “Uncle Tom,” which was the topic that had absorbed Fry and made him two minutes behind him; went home and wrote a note to his friend Williams informing him of the suicide that had taken place, and reflecting severely upon Josephs for his whole conduct, with which this last offense against discipline was in strict accordance.  Then he had his grog, and having nothing to do he thought he would see what was that story which had prevailed so far over the stern realities of system as to derange that piece of clock work that went by the name of Fry.  He yawned over the first pages, but as the master hand unrolled the great chromatic theory, he became absorbed, and devoured this great human story till his candles burned down in their sockets and sent him to bed four hours later than usual.