Last Time's laugh predicated a deep, pleasurable reminiscence, as they entered the bath house. There was no one in the bath house at this time save the convict attendant. He handed Lem a towel which in dimensions resembled a large table napkin, and a piece of yellow soap which in size looked like a chewing-gum wafer. Here, Last Time reached out and took the mite of soap and the meagre towel out of Lem's hands. "Hoggie, I'll look after him. You stay up at the door and watch the big-top. If you see the bull come out and pike over uneasy, you squeak. Wait, Lutts--I'll get you a decent piece of soap." With this he climbed up on a box, and reaching up behind a series of steam pipes, he produced a half-bar of white soap and a towel of coarse fabric, but clean and ample. Lem then busied himself with the bath, which was sunken into the concrete floor. As this new-made friend talked along, trying to acquaint Lem with the rules of the prison, he noticed that the boy fumbled, and hesitated, and was plainly abashed when it came to divesting himself of his clothes. Last Time thoughtfully left the mountaineer to himself, saying: "I'll help Hoggie watch for old Caladadac--you can wash your hair if you want to--that soap is O. K." Some fifteen minutes later, when Lem had concluded his hasty bath and joined his conductor at the door of the bath house, a high-keyed bell suddenly pealed out. It was the first familiar sound Lem had heard since he left the mountains. "That's the recall," said Last Time. "Stay back in the door a minute and you'll see the file come out--they've stopped work now--it's four o'clock." The celerity with which these convicts got out of the shops was remarkable. Hardly had the tower bell ceased when five long rows of stripes stood ready to march. The guards each blew a mouth-whistle in turn, and the columns moved across the plaza toward the wash-shed like a great dragon with hundreds of legs. Then out of the wash-shed the columns crawled, bent around the dungeon-house, and marched into the big dining hall, with the scraping rise and fall of the lock-step--a peculiar, sinister sound. Lem had peeped out at the bath-house door upon this spectacle with awesome eyes. He stood in open-mouthed wonder, and was aroused only when Last Time spoke and touched his arm. "The night bull 'll come on now, and he'll be hollerin' for me--we better git along," he said. "You won't eat with them men. You'll git yours in the dining hall inside." Upon reaching the cell-house, Last Time conducted Lem to the tables at the front end of the basement corridor where the Court prisoners were already at supper, and then left him. A soup-bowl, filled with a substance that at least resembled coffee; a plate of beans, and a thick piece of bread were placed in front of Lem by a convict waiter.