He sank on to the settle at the side of the wall. He was inert and stupefied. Great cold beads began to roll from his cheeks. He could see and comprehend nothing. Under the dominion of his terror he began to wish for death. Quite suddenly a voice came out of the darkness. “What ’ave they pinched you for, mate?” said a low growl in his ear. He had not been conscious that any other living presence was in the dark room, except that nameless something which was lying on the floor. He was so startled that he gave a little shriek. “Pipe up, cully,” said the low growl in his ear. The boy’s teeth began to chatter furiously, but they emitted no sounds that were coherent. “Off his onion!” growled the voice, together with a string of blood-curdling expressions, from which the boy was mercifully delivered comprehension. Presently the voice growled out of the darkness again. “Got a chew, cully?” The faculty of speech was still denied to the boy. Further blood-curdling expressions followed from the other occupant of the bench, who then relapsed into a morose silence. The boy grew very cold. He trembled violently; yet his heart had almost seemed to stop beating. The darkness and the silence and the strangeness and the loneliness seemed to grow more intense. His mind would hardly submit to the question of what had happened to him. It refused to revert to his father and the little room. He felt that he was never going to see them again. After a while he slipped from the bench involuntarily. He found himself on his knees on the cold stone floor. He clasped his hands and pressed his eyes convulsively against the piece of wood on which he had been sitting. He began to pray. There seemed to be nothing else to do. Two hours later a police constable entered and lit a feeble gas-jet high up in the wall. It was protected by a cage of wire. He then gave a kick to the breathing, shapeless thing without a name, which lay in the middle of the stone floor. With a leer of jocular malignity the occupant of the form pointed to the kneeling figure of the boy. “Off his onion, mate,” he said, with a low growl and expectorating freely. “Pity you ain’t,” said the police constable. The occupant of the form spat upon the boots of the police constable. The police constable approached the boy, and said, with a sort of rough kindness-- “You can have the _Christian Herald_, my lad, if you’d like it.” The boy neither moved nor answered. He did not know that a word had been spoken to him. “Told yer, cully,” came the rough growl from the form. “He’s up the pole.” The police constable walked out of the cell with a greater show of delicacy than that with which he had entered it. An hour afterwards he came in again carrying two basins of thick lukewarm gruel and a copy of the _Christian Herald_, two months out of date. He found the boy to be still on his knees in the precise attitude he was in when he entered before. “Balmy!” growled the voice from the bench.