For a long time I was fairly content with what was practically solitary confinement. I had my books, my pipe, cigarettes and my regular supply of hop. Whether I worked in the daytime or not I would usually spend my evenings in the same way. I would lie on my cot and sometimes a thought like the following would come to me: "Yes, I have stripes on. When I am released perhaps some one will pity me, particularly the women. They may despise and avoid me, most likely they will. But I don't care. All I want is to get their wad of money. In the meantime I have my opium and my thoughts and am just as happy as the millionaire, unless he has a narcotic." After the drug had begun to work I would frequently fall into a deep sleep and not wake until one or two o'clock the following morning; then I would turn on my light, peer through my cell door, and try to see through the little window out in the corridor. A peculiar nervousness often came over me at this hour, particularly if the weather had been rainy, and my imagination would run on a ship-wreck very often, or on some other painful subject; and I might tell the story to myself in jingles, or jot it down on a piece of paper. Then my whole being would be quiet. A gentle, soothing melancholy would steal upon me. Often my imagination was so powerfully affected that I could really see the events of my dream. I could see the ship tossing about on waves mountain high. Then and only then I was positive I had a soul. I was in such a state of peace that I could not bear that any human being should suffer. At first the scenes before my imagination would be most harrowing, with great loss of life, but when one of the gentle sex appeared vividly before me a shudder passed over me, and I would seek consolation in jingles such as the following: A gallant bark set sail one day For a port beyond the sea, The Captain had taken his fair young bride To bear him company. This little brown lass Was of Puritan stock. Her eyes were the brightest e'er seen. They never came back; The ship it was wrecked In a storm in the old Gulf Stream. Two years had passed, then a letter came To a maid in a New England town. It began Darling Kate, it ended Your Jack, I am alive in a foreign land. The Captain, his gentle young wife and your own Were saved by that hand unseen, But the rest----they went down In that terrible storm That night in the old Gulf Stream.