Service concluded, the governor began to turn a wheel in his pew; this wheel exhibited to the congregation a number, the convict whose number corresponded instantly took down his badge (the sight and position of which had determined the governor in working his wheel), drew the peak of his cap over his face, and went out and waited in the lobby.  When all the sentry-boxes were thus emptied, dead march of the whole party back to the main building; here the warders separated them, and sent them, dead silent, vizors down, some to clean the prison, some to their cells, some to hard labor, and some to an airing in the yard.

Robinson was to be aired.  “Hurrah!” thought sociable Tom.  Alas! he found the system in the yard as well as in the chapel.  The promenade was a number of passages radiating from a common center; the sides of passage were thick walls; entrance to passage an iron gate locked behind the promenader.  An officer remained on the watch the whole time to see that a word did not creep out or in through one of the gates.

“And this they call out of doors,” grunted Robinson.

After an hour’s promenade he was taken into his cell, where at twelve the trap in his door was opened and his dinner shoved in and the trap snapped to again, all in three seconds.  A very good dinner, better than paupers always get—­three ounces of meat—­no bone, eight ounces of potatoes, and eight ounces of bread.  After dinner three weary hours without an incident.  At about three o’clock one of the warders opened his cell door and put his head in and swiftly withdrew it.  Three more monotonous hours, and then supper—­one pint of gruel, and eight ounces of bread.  He ate it as slowly as he could to eke out a few minutes in the heavy day.  Quarter before eight a bell to go to bed.  At eight the warders came round and saw that all the prisoners were in bed.  The next day the same thing, and the next ditto, with this exception, that one of the warders came into his cell and minutely examined it in dead silence.  The fourth day the chaplain visited him, asked him a few questions, repeated a few sentences on the moral responsibility of every human being, and set him some texts of Scripture to learn by heart.  This visit, though merely one of routine, broke the thief’s dead silence and solitude, and he would have been thankful to have a visit every day from the chaplain, whose manner was formal, but not surly and forbidding like the turnkeys or warders.

Next day the governor of the jail came suddenly into the cell and put to Robinson several questions, which he answered with great affability; then, turning on his heel, said bruskly, “Have you anything to say to me?”

“Yes, sir, if you please.”

“Out with it then, my man,” said the governor impatiently.

“Sir, I was condemned to hard labor; now I wanted to ask you when my hard labor is to begin, because I have not been put upon anything yet.”