The train was late, and it was long after nine o'clock when it pulled into the Fairview station. The day had been hot, and the breath of evening was bringing out grateful and cooling odors from the sunburnt stubble of the hillside as Fred Starratt and his keeper stepped upon the station platform. The insane Italian followed between two guards. An automobile swung toward them. They got in and rode through the thickening gloom for about three miles... Presently one of the deputies leaned toward Fred, pointing a finger in the direction of a cluster of lights, as he said: "There's your future home, old man. Keep a stiff upper lip. You'll need all your grit." CHAPTER XII Fred Starratt rested surprisingly well that first night. But two weeks in the detention hospital had taken the sting out of institutional preliminaries. The officials at Fairview put him through precisely the same paces, except upon a somewhat larger scale. There was the selfsame questioning, the same yielding up of personal effects, the same inevitable bath. And almost the same solitary room, except that this one peered out upon the free world through a heavily barred window instead of through a skylight, and boasted a kitchen chair. He was to be alone then!... He thanked God for this solitude and slept. He awoke at six o'clock to the clipped shriek of a whistle. Shortly after, a key turned in his door. There followed the sound of scores of bare feet pattering up and down the hall. Was it imagination or did these muffled footfalls have an inhuman softness?... Suddenly his door flew open. He shrank beneath the bedclothes, peering out with one unscreened eye. A knot of gesticulating and innocent madmen were gazing at him with all the simplicity of children. After a few moments, their curiosity satisfied, they pattered on their ghostly way again. This, he afterward learned, was the daily morning inspection of newcomers. Presently the whistle blew again and a bell sounded through the corridors. A rush of answering feet swept past; a great silence fell. A half hour later a monstrous man with glittering eyes and clawlike fingers came in, carrying breakfast--a large dishpan filled with a slimy mush, two slices of dry bread, and a mound of greasy hash. Fred turned away with a movement of supreme disgust. The gigantic attendant laughed.