It is useless--I can make nothing of it all; so I sit down again and try to compose my mind to write, but the effort is not very successful. Presently, just after the bell at the City Hall has given its eight o'clock stroke, the Warden appears quietly at the opening of my cell.
"Something has happened," I begin breathlessly, "I don't know what it is, but it ought to be looked into----"
I come to an abrupt stop, for I am suddenly aware of the figure of a man standing in the shadow just behind the Warden.
"Who is that?" I ask, and he steps farther along the gallery, but not where the light from the cell can strike him.
"Only the night officer," answers the Warden.
That is all very well; but why was the night officer lurking in the dark behind the Warden? I decide to ask him a plain, direct question; for he has already heard what is uppermost in my mind.
"Captain," I say, politely, "what was that noise I heard a short while ago?"
The officer, pretending that he has not heard my question, turns to the Warden with some perfectly irrelevant remark, and moves off, along the gallery.
"Warden," I begin again, after waiting until the man must be out of hearing, "I heard shouting off in the corridor somewhere, not very long ago; and I am afraid something bad has happened. Would it not be well to find out about it?"
This the Warden promises to do, so I stifle my fears as best I can and turn to the events of the day. I report progress; and we again debate whether or not I had better make a change of occupation. Last evening we decided that I should remain still another day in the basket-shop; for it seemed as if I were getting as much out of my experience there as I could anywhere. The Warden is inclined to agree with me that we have been singularly fortunate so far, in the working out of our plans, and that it might be a mistake to change. Jack Murphy, when I talked with him about it to-day, said, "What good would it do you, to go and work in a shop where you can't talk? You can learn everything there is to know about such a shop by spending ten minutes there, any time." Then he added, with a smile, "You know, Brown, we don't want to lose you here." I hope this last is true, and I think it is; but, aside from that, his reasoning impresses me as good.