Of the other fads, among the many, is one which the man possesses who makes exquisite paper boxes. His paste was soap, till I taught him to use oatmeal. Then there is the Greek who grows onions. It is for company, surely, for he cannot speak two words of English, and has not a single visitor. The library contains no Greek books, and the English ones are Greek to him. Once a week the great Empire State presents a raw onion to each condemned man. Death-Chamber and raw onions—what a combination for producing tears! Let me inform the commonwealth that the onions are superfluous. Some of us eat them. I give mine away, but the Greek plants all of his. This is vastly exciting. First he makes little paper boxes that just hold them, then packs them round with tobacco, moistens the latter, and then sits down and watches them grow. This is almost literal, for never did “green bay tree” so flourish. From the rapid way they shoot up, I know that if any blossoms or fruit grew on the stalks they would be little balloons. And the color! the most beautiful green you ever saw—this from the tobacco. I have always suspected that “State” tobacco was made from some sort of—fertilizer! So the Greek watches his onions, and the death-watch watches the Greek. I try to imagine his thoughts. It is easily done. I am sure he sees the little cottage and garden in the far-away archipelago where he helped his mother do just what he is doing now. Perhaps that is the first thing he remembers—perhaps it will be the last. He is not handsome, but how his face lights up sometimes! Then I know that he is living over the days when, as a youth, he worked in the vineyards or among the currant bushes at home. There is a romance behind it all, you may be sure. Yesterday he was here watching his onions with all his usual care; to-day he is gone, and the keepers are sweeping his onions out and throwing them away, for no one cares for the onions except the Greek, and no one regrets the Greek, except, perhaps, the onions. Happily this is not a sad ending, for “John, the Greek,” has been given a hope—he has gone to New York for a new trial. His life was never in the slightest danger, he having been tried and sentenced by a judge who has condemned many men to electrocution, and not one of them, I believe, was ever executed, because their trials before this judge have been found by a higher court to have been illegal. This is one of “His Honor’s” little ways—he also has his fad. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ _CHAPTER VI_ _The Mayor of the Death-Chamber_ I had ruled undisputed for a year—it seemed a century. By common consent I was the acknowledged “Mayor of the Death-Chamber,” and very properly so, for was not I the oldest inhabitant? All questions were referred to me. I was the final court of arbitration; what I said “went.”