The following morning, when the Chief Warder came to see me, I started again on the rules and regulations. We fought long and hard; and finally he granted me permission to get a daily paper and to smoke one pipe a day. “Only,” he said, “you must smoke it outside, and you must smoke it in a special yard by yourself where the smell of the tobacco won’t annoy the others.” I agreed; and before he left me he took the “Rules” from the wall and bore them away with him.
So I took my exercise that morning by myself, in the small yard between the forks of the prison building. My pipe was presented to me, and my pouch. When the pipe was filled, I was presented with a match, and I was watched while I lit up. Then my pouch was taken away and the door was locked behind me and I was left alone.
The yard was very small, and triangular. It had apparently not been much used, for the flints lay loose upon the surface of the ground, save for one little circle in the centre that had been trodden hard. Two sides of the triangle were formed by the prison, the walls of which rose sheer above me, cold and grey, with menacing barred windows at regular intervals. On the third side a high wall of masonry made the base of the triangle. The day was sunlit, but the sunlight could only fall across a small corner of the yard. Two daisies were growing in the centre of the circle: which I picked, and instantly regretted the selfishness and vandalism of the deed.
I walked round and round, smoking my pipe; but when my pipe was finished, the folly of my decision faced me. Here I was shut for another hour on a floor of flints, surrounded by oppressive grey walls that rose sheer above me, with nothing to look upon but walls and floor, and high above me a patch of blue sky, across which clouds sailed. Deeply I envied the other men their sight of one another, and their craft and tricks to outwit the warder. I walked round and round the little circle, first one way and then the other; and gave that up. I tried lying down in the corner, where the sunlight fell; but found flint shards not the most inviting of seats. And it seemed an interminable time before the warder unlocked the door to unloose me from what had become a refined form of torture.