They were worse than anyone of the party anticipated. One or two men arrested for incendiarism and a few tramps were all who had occupied the place for a long time. No one had been in it for months. Consequently but little attention had been paid to it and the room was close and damp. “Smells enough to knock you down,” Miss Hansford said, holding her nose as she put her head inside the door, which had been unlocked by an official waiting for the party. Hundreds of spiders’ webs filled with dead flies festooned the walls and the small barred windows. The floor was littered with sticks and shavings and stained with tobacco juice. Miss Hansford held her skirts high as he stepped into the room, and taking up the pillow from the bunk pronounced it “hen’s feathers and bad ones at that.” “Oh, father,” Paul said, “I can’t go in there. I should die before morning with the smells and the spiders and the rats. See that big one scurrying across the floor.” Miss Hansford’s shriek would have called attention to it if Paul had not. The long, lank creature had run across her feet, and with the agility of a young girl she had leaped into the wooden chair to get out of its way. “Take me to the jail at once. It is better than this,” Paul continued, and “Yes, to the jail,” was repeated by those who had gathered outside and were looking on with pity for the young man who had fallen so suddenly from a palace, as it were, to a prison. The jail stood about a mile from the town, near the shore, and at some little distance from the road. It was a large frame building, old and dilapidated, but answering every purpose for the few occasions when it was called in requisition. The jailer and his wife occupied the front rooms, and those in the rear were reserved for prisoners when any were there. As it had once been a dwelling house the so-called cells were larger and pleasanter every way than are usually found in country jails. After some necessary preliminaries and orders Paul was taken there and the best and airiest room assigned him. It was very bare of furniture, but it was scrupulously clean, and a great improvement on the lock-up. But there were iron bars across the window and a heavy padlock on the door outside. It was a prison and Paul was a prisoner. Sitting down in the hard chair, and, leaning his head against his father, he began to realize what it would be when he was alone and they were all gone. “Keep up, my boy, keep up,” his father kept saying. “We’ll soon have you out. I’ll come again to-night and bring your mother to-morrow, if she is able.” Max was looking on and wishing he had never been elected constable, while Tom was quietly taking note of the bars at the window and the decayed condition of the casings. “Good-bye, Paul, for a few hours,” the judge said, stooping down and kissing his boy, a thing he had not done in years.