We march to dinner in the same order as at breakfast, and I find myself again next to the blue-shirted Landry. I like his looks and his personality. It is curious how one can get an effect of that, even under the rigid and unnatural demeanor which the discipline engenders. There is a dapper little chap who leads the right line of our company to whose back I have taken a great liking; some day I hope to get acquainted with his face.
Our dinner is mutton stew, which is really good. I had been told at the shop in the morning what the bill of fare would be; for as one week's dietary is exactly the same as all other weeks, you can calculate with accuracy upon every meal. I eat my dinner with peculiar relish after our morning struggle with the coal car.
Arrived back at the cell, Joe, the other gallery boy, stops to chat, after he has dispensed water along the tier. "Say, Brown," he begins, "do you know after the talk you give us up in chapel on Sunday there was some of us didn't believe you really meant to come down and live with us. Then they thought if you did come you'd manage to get up to the Warden's quarters for supper and a bed. But, say, when the boys see you marchin' down with your bucket this mornin'--they knew you meant business!"
Then the youngster puts his face up close to the bars, squints through them admiringly, looks me all up and down from head to foot, and breaks out with: "Gee! You're a dead game sport!"
On the whole I think that's by far the finest compliment I ever had in my life.
In my cell, Tuesday evening, September 30.
Laying aside my journal this noon, I don my coat and cap and stand ready at the cell door. The Captain passes by, unlocking the levers; then repasses, pushing them down, and I am ready to fall in line as usual; but one of the gray figures stops suddenly and whispers to me, "Your cup! You've forgotten your cup!" So I create a momentary halt and confusion in the gallery as I dash back into the cell to get my tin cup and out again, leaving it on the shelf at the entrance. We traverse the gallery, descend the iron stairs, line up at the door, march first slowly then rapidly down the yard, through the sewage disposal building to the bucket stands; and so to the basket-shop again.