Then comes the last night. Everything must be done very exactly now. Our code prescribes for everything; nothing must be omitted, no custom may be violated. The early evening passes as usual. Generally he asks for songs, perhaps he will sing one himself. That is as it may be. But at midnight the last rites among us of the Death-Chamber take place. The keeper comes to my cell carrying, perhaps, the little paper box my departing friend has kept his tobacco in so long; one that he made and decorated himself. “Keep that to remember me by,” I hear from the direction of the little door. “Thank you,” I reply. “Good-by. I hope you have luck and get out,” is the next part of the ritual. I must respond, “Thank you. Good-by, and God bless you.” This is repeated with each one separately. He gives everything away, books, pipe, all. For six months he has been turning over in his mind just what treasure each of his companions shall receive when the last night comes. The responses never vary. They are now as they were ten years ago; they will be the same twenty years from now if that hell on earth is still in existence. No one speaks to him or to any one else after that. He is reading and rereading each of those letters for the last time and destroying them. We hear him tearing them up one by one. “Swish, swish, swish.” Then it is quiet, very quiet in the Death-Chamber. I am not sleepy; the other fellows do not seem to be sleepy. They are reading. I sit up and write this; to-morrow I will write the other half. _The Next Morning_ I have often read in the newspapers the supposed meal partaken of by the departing guest “furnished from the Warden’s table.” No newspaper reporter seems able to resist a description of the last breakfast, and no two papers ever publish the same one. Did the wretch gorge himself to the extent indicated, indigestion and not electricity would carry him off, and justice be cheated. No, he is not even stimulated to the extent of a cup of coffee, and for a good reason; a full stomach is not a good conductor. You will read that “the man was indifferent.” I tell you he was glad to go. “That he made no trouble.” Why should he? “Our horror,” how we are affected by our companion’s death, is portrayed. As a matter of fact, we envy him. Anything, everything is better than existence in the Death-Chamber.