“That’s what they wear now when it’s necessary to put them on.” One may see in harness rooms, bits, and chains, and stirrups glisten, but never was harness room so garnished as this little chamber. The four walls were bright as diamonds to the very ceiling with jewels of every kind; light and heavy bangles, long chains, short chains, thin chains, and very thick iron chains. “Those are old-fashioned,” said the warder; “we don’t use them now.” “And this?” It stood quite close, made of three very bright steel bars, joined at the top, wide asunder at the bottom, and clamped together by cross bars in the middle. “That’s the triangles,” he said a little hurriedly. “Do you flog much?” He stared. You are lacking--he seemed to say--in delicacy. “Very little,” he answered, “only when it’s necessary.” And unconscious that he had proclaimed the spirit of the system that he served, the spirit of all systems, he drew his heels together, as though saluting discipline. To his old figure standing there, tall, upright, and so orderly, and to his grave and not unkindly face, it was impossible to feel aversion. But in this little room there seemed to come and stand in line with him, and at his back, in an ever-growing pyramid, shaped to an apex like the very triangles themselves, the countless figures of officialdom. They stood there, upright, and orderly, with the words: “Only when it’s necessary,” coming from their mouths. And as one looked, one saw how chiselled in its form, how smooth and slippery in surface, how impermeable in structure, was that pyramid. Wedged in perfect symmetry, bound together man to man by something common to their souls, this phalanx stood by the force of its own shape, like dead masonry; stone on stone, each resting on the other, solid and immovable, in terrifying stillness. And in the eyes of all that phalanx--blue eyes, brown eyes, grey eyes, and mournful hazel eyes, converging on one point--there was the same look: “Stand away, please--don’t touch the pyramid!” Turning his back on the triangles, the old warder said again: “Only when it’s necessary.” “And when is it necessary?” “The rules decide that.” “Of course. But who makes them?” His smile faded. “The system,” he replied. “And do you know how the system has come about?” He frowned--a strange question, this, to ask him! “That,” he said with slight impatience in his voice, “is not for me to say.” And he jerked his neck, as though continuing: “Ask that of him behind me!” Involuntarily I looked, but there was no one there, behind him; only the triangles, beautifully bright. Then, with the same uncanny suddenness there sprang up again a vision of that solid pyramid of men, and the head of each seemed turned over his shoulder, saying: “Ask that of him behind me.” With a sort of eagerness I tried to see the apex of that pyramid. It was too far away. “We’ve got to maintain order,” he said suddenly, as though repelling a subtle onslaught on his point of view.