Inside the yard, about twenty other guests shuffled around and around in a circle. Their gray coveralls were dark and heavy with the rain and clung to their bodies in clammy-looking patches. All moved sluggishly through the mud with their arms hanging slack at their sides, their shoulders hunched forward against the wet chill, and their eyes turned downward, as though they were fascinated with the halting progress of their own feet. I had never seen people look so completely dispirited and tired. Only one man raised his head to look at us as we stood there. I noticed that his forehead had bright purple marks on it. These proved to be "_No. 94, Property of MMF_," in inch-high letters which ran from temple to temple just above his eyebrows. Incredibly enough the man grinned at us. "You'll be sah-reeeee," he yelped. I saw him go down into the mud under a blow with a kidney-sock from a burly male guard who had been standing in the center of the cheerless little circle. "Leave the welcoming ceremonies to us, knoedelhead!" barked the guard. The improvident guest rose painfully and resumed his plodding with the rest. I noticed that he made no rejoinder. He cringed. We were led into a small office at one end of a long, wooden, one-story building. A sign on the door said, simply, "_Admissions. Knock and Remove Hat._" The lady guard knocked and we entered. We had no hats to remove; indeed, this was emphasized for us by the fact that the rain had by now penetrated our hair and brows and was running down over our faces annoyingly. * * * * * As soon as I'd blinked the rain from my eyes, I was able to see the form of the person behind the desk with more clarity than I might have wished. He was large, but terribly emaciated, with the kind of gauntness that should be covered by a sheet--tenderly, reverently and finally. Picture the archetype of every chain-gang captain who has been relieved for inhumanity to prisoners; imagine the naked attribute Meanness, stripped of all accidental, incongruous, mitigating integument; picture all kindness, all mercy, all warmth, all humanity excised or cauterized, or turned back upon itself and let ferment into some kind of noxious mash; visualize the creature from which all the gentle qualities had been expunged, thus, and then try to forget the image.