Am I attempting to retaliate upon the System for personal indignities and mishandling; or am I the dupe and tool of designing miscreants--convicts, guards or foremen--who plied me with false statements to wreak revenges of their own? I have already said that I was never harshly treated by any of the prison officials, and after the two first months indulgences were allowed me beyond the customary prison usage. During my two first months, to be sure, it seemed unlikely that I could live out my term, because I was kept at work in an underground place without ventilation or other than artificial light, and permeated with the hot-water pipes which supplied the buildings with heat and power. I was also unable to eat the prison fare, and was slowly perishing for lack of food. I never complained of this treatment, for it was in the ordinary prison course; but when the consequences of it became visible in my physical appearance, I was put on a diet of oatmeal and milk, morning and evening, and allowed to exercise in the open air. I voluntarily, during this period, went without dinner, being unwilling to poison myself with the rancid grease and garbage served under that name; but I made the most of the simple but nourishing milk diet, though it was insufficient in quantity; and I improved to the utmost the outdoor privileges, besides adhering resolutely to a régimen of daily calisthenic exercises; so that, when I was set at liberty at the end of six or seven months, I was in physical condition quite as good as when I went in. I was never denied leave to write "special letters," and my intercourse with the warden and his deputies, though always as seldom and brief as I could make it, was uniformly suave and smiling. The reasons for all which I shall have occasion to discuss later. So much for the "grouch." As for being made the dupe of designing persons among the lower officials, and my fellow prisoners,--beyond replying tersely to questions put to me, I never had any communication with the former, and never heard or spoke a word with them reflecting upon the prison management. But what of my fellow prisoners?