After an hour's promenade he was taken into his cell, where at twelve the trap in his door was opened and his dinner shoved in and the trap snapped to again, all in three seconds. A very good dinner, better than paupers always get--three ounces of meat--no bone, eight ounces of potatoes, and eight ounces of bread. After dinner three weary hours without an incident. At about three o'clock one of the warders opened his cell door and put his head in and swiftly withdrew it. Three more monotonous hours, and then supper--one pint of gruel, and eight ounces of bread. He ate it as slowly as he could to eke out a few minutes in the heavy day. Quarter before eight a bell to go to bed. At eight the warders came round and saw that all the prisoners were in bed. The next day the same thing, and the next ditto, with this exception, that one of the warders came into his cell and minutely examined it in dead silence. The fourth day the chaplain visited him, asked him a few questions, repeated a few sentences on the moral responsibility of every human being, and set him some texts of Scripture to learn by heart. This visit, though merely one of routine, broke the thief's dead silence and solitude, and he would have been thankful to have a visit every day from the chaplain, whose manner was formal, but not surly and forbidding like the turnkeys or warders. Next day the governor of the jail came suddenly into the cell and put to Robinson several questions, which he answered with great affability; then, turning on his heel, said bruskly, “Have you anything to say to me?” “Yes, sir, if you please.” “Out with it then, my man,” said the governor impatiently. “Sir, I was condemned to hard labor; now I wanted to ask you when my hard labor is to begin, because I have not been put upon anything yet.” “We are kinder to you than the judges then, it seems.” “Yes, sir! but I am not naturally lazy, and--” “A little hard work would amuse you just now?” “Indeed, sir, I think it would; I am very much depressed in spirits.” “You will be worse before you are better.” “Heaven forbid! I think if you don't give me something to do I shall go out of my mind soon, sir.” “That is what they all say! You will be put on hard labor, I promise you, but not when it suits you. We'll choose the time.” And the governor went out with a knowing smile upon his face. The thief sat himself down disconsolately, and the heavy hours, like leaden waves, seemed to rise and rise, and roll over his head and suffocate him, and weigh him down, down, down to bottomless despair.