* * * * * Turning his head and pressing against bars, he could look up and down the corridor outside. To his right, sighted through the left eye, it stretched, maybe a hundred feet, maybe more, to end in a right angle turn and a blank wall. The other way, some indeterminate, dim distance off, he could barely make out another barred door. There were, he could sense rather than see, other cells in neat, penal line on either side of his. Occupied? Yes. There were noises; grunts, yawns, mumbling, nothing distinguishable in the way of conversation but clear enough evidence that there were other prisoners. He was glad of that. "Hey!" he yelled again, "hey, somebody. Come let me out of here, damnit." But nobody did. After a bit he went back to his bunk and sat. Routine, he supposed, and rules. Probably it was too early yet. But certainly before long someone would come. They would have to let him see someone in authority; straighten this mess out fast enough then. He stood and went through his pockets. Not much; but, at least, a crumpled pack with three cigarettes and one book of matches. He sat again and smoked. Patience. Later, not long probably, he was roused from a dull torpor by a metallic clatter from the corridor. He leaped to his feet--damn that cold floor--and to the front of his cell. Outside, just one or two cells down from his own was a rig of some sort; some kind of a steam table on wheels, apparently. Anyway, it was steaming greasily. There were metal trays stacked at one end; buckets of one thing or another in apertures along its eight foot length. Breakfast? Something, anyway, being served up by four hopeless slatterns dressed in sack-like, brown and dirty white striped denim uniforms. The women whined and mumbled at each other as they dragged along, filling trays and tin cups from the containers in their steam table, passing them into cells, dispensers of the state's bounty, no benediction. "Well now look at here, girls," said the lead witch, coming abreast of the man's cell, "looks like we got us a real juicy young buster, a nice gentleman prisoner type. Fresh meat, hah?" They all screeched and squawked then, crowding to the front of his cell to look, exchanging viciously obscene guesses regarding his probable past history of despicable crime, present intimate personal condition, and future possibilities, all singularly unattractive. He gaped at them a moment in shocked disgust and then backed from the door of his cell to sit on the bunk, head down, not looking, trying not to listen. * * * * *