I have often wondered in how many quires of foolscap this humane act involved the little man. I only hope he got no wigging from the Home Office for this assumption of responsibility, for I found him most kind and courteous, and in return I fear I worried him out of his life by applications for sleeping draughts, which he invariably let me have without a murmur. I took this opportunity also of getting his permission to keep my gas burning all night, for I felt that sleep was out of the question; and as I had asked for and been promised the special _Standard_, which invariably contains some paragraphs of interest of a world-renowned General’s, I began to hope that I might “settle down,” as my friend the warder had suggested. But settling down in theory and settling down in practice, especially in the “House of Detention,” are two distinct things. The privilege of keeping my gas burning, too, involved a most unpleasant consequence, diametrically opposed to “settling down.” Anyone whose light is left burning is supposed to be concocting some hideous treachery, and has to be “seen” every fifteen minutes; and thus through this long dreary winter night and every subsequent ten nights of my stay found me being taken stock of every quarter of an hour. I must—without being aware of it—about this time have commenced the “settling down” process, for I could actually bring myself to uttering the feeblest jokes, such as “Ah! how are you, old cockie? Just in time; another minute and I should have burrowed through the ventilator.” These little sallies, I am bound to admit, did not always meet with the reception their pungency merited. Occasionally they extracted a grin or a chaffy reply; at others a grunt and a bang of the trap-door. But I have again wandered from my first entrance into my cell, and demonstrating (what I honestly pleaded) my utter amateurishness in the writing of a book. I must only hope that the tale it unfolds will make up for this defect. A rattle of a tin knife on a pewter vessel, followed by the turning of the key, announced the arrival of my supper; and, oh, shades of Romano, how “my heart beat for thee!” CHAPTER IV. “PRISON FARE.”