Chapter 27 Summary

Chapter twenty-seven describes the narrator's first experience in a spike. Upon entering, the tramps must relinquish any money and tobacco, but they hide it in their socks or papers. Their clothes are taken away from them to be cleaned, and they are given a long, gray shirt to wear in the meantime. They are led to stone cells, which they share with one other person. The cells are eight by five feet and contain a tiny, barred window, six blankets, a chamber pot, and a hot water pipe but no beds. They sleep on the cold, hard floor, and the narrator's cellmate makes homosexual advances to him.

In the morning, they are ordered to strip for inspection. A doctor walks through the halls, looking them up and down to detect smallpox. The narrator is disgusted by the bodies of these homeless men and...