"You can have it out as you want it," the man said; "and anything you want outside I can get for you out of it. The only thing prohibited is vodka." Some of the other men came round, and Godfrey thought he had never seen more villainous faces. Some of them were heavy, stolid, and stupid; others were fierce and passionate. "He is a vagabond," Mikail said to them. "I don't know what he has been before that, and if he is wise," and he gave a significant glance at Godfrey, "he will keep that to himself." "I should say he had been a political," one of the men said in a tone of contempt, for there was a certain jealousy of the politicals among the convict class; because, although their lot was really much harder than that of ordinary convicts, they were allowed to retain their own clothes, were lodged separately, and were almost all men of education, and in many cases of noble family. The feeling was evidenced by the indifference with which the rest of the men strolled away again when they heard the suggestion. "How do they all get tobacco?" Godfrey asked the starosta. "Is it part of the rations? Surely the money they may have when they come in here must soon be spent." "We may buy the tobacco," Mikail said. "Every man has something for his work. They pretend it is half the value of the work we do, but of course we know better than that. Still we all get something each day, and can spend it as we like. I don't think they allow smoking in the western prisons, but they do in all those east of Irkutsk. The authorities encourage it, indeed, for it is considered healthy and keeps away fever. There are no fevers in summer, but in winter, from so many men being shut up together, the air gets bad and sometimes we have outbreaks of fever." "But where do you buy your tobacco?" "People come to the prison gates and sell it as we come back from work. You can buy anything except vodka, and you can buy that, though not openly; it gets smuggled in." "How many hours do you work a day?" "Thirteen; but of course it is only for five months in the year. In winter the ground is too hard." "Too hard!" Godfrey repeated. "Why, it never gets cold in mines." "You don't think you are going to work underground, do you?" the man said; "there are very few underground mines here. It is all on the surface. There are some underground, because I have worked in them. I would rather work there than here. They can't look after you so sharp, and you can take it as easily as you like." Godfrey looked astonished. His ideas of the Siberian mines had been taken from stories written by men who had never been within thousands of miles of them, and who drew terrible pictures of the sufferings of exiles simply for the purpose of exciting feeling throughout Europe against the Russian government. "But it is very unhealthy in the mines underground, is it not?" "No; why should it be? It is much cooler and pleasanter working underground than it is in the dust and heat, I can tell you."