I hope I make an unchallenged assertion when I say that it was my first visit inside a civilian jail. It was, at all events, an experience which I do not wish to repeat. At first I worried through a few hours examining the pictures and names carved on the walls. This exciting pastime exhausted, I divided the remaining time between singing and reading the old German Bible, which I found on the shelf, beginning with first chapter of Genesis. My singing, too, was restricted to a _sotto voce_ the second day when a voice from outside the door shouted: “_Nicht singen! Nicht singen! Das geht nicht!_” But I think this prohibition was due less to the rules and traditions of the institution than to the peculiar quality of my singing. Three times a day the old warden came in with a hunk of my bread, a slice of my bacon, and a cup of German coffee. It was a concession, he explained. I should have gotten only the coffee, but he had a son who had formerly worked in England! It was lavish fare for this prison at any rate, for several times every day one of the other prisoners appeared at the little peep-hole in my door and begged: “_Brot, Brot, Kamarad!_ Just a little crumb of _Brot_!” I was not a little curious to learn what manner of men my comrades in misery were. I was accordingly pleased the second night when I gained an opportunity of improving our acquaintance. I was slumbering peacefully on my downy couch when I felt myself being roughly shaken, and a voice: “_Engländer! Engländer!_” It was my kind old warden. “_Kom darunter--Blitzen!_”[11] I obeyed him, wondering, slipping on my trousers and going downstairs. I found my fellow prisoners to be two emaciated, but still professional looking gentlemen of the underworld. The hall clock was striking two. Having gone through the usual social amenities, I sought to learn what object our gaoler had, beyond a general get-together meeting of the inmates, in disturbing our repose at this unwonted hour. “_Ach_,” explained one of them, who was hunchbacked, “That’s on account of the lightning!” We listened a few minutes until we heard a rumble of thunder. “_Da!_” he exclaimed, “you see it might strike the jail, and if we were all up in the cells we would die like rats!” It struck me as a novel, but, I agreed, doubtless quite a wise precaution. I learned further that we three were all the prisoners. The twenty-seven empty cells were a testimonial to the shattering effect of the war on “business.” My companions were serving a sentence of eight months for a robbery committed in the town. “We don’t any of us belong to Mecklenburg,” observed the hunchback pleasantly. “You see, my mate’s an Austrian, I’m an East Prussian, and you’re an _Engländer_, so we’re sort of _Kamaraden_, aren’t we?” “How jolly!” I thought. A pause ensued, allowing us to hear the whistle of a locomotive and the distant rumbling of a train coming around the bend--which bend I will not say, for the sake of neutrality.