Sufficient unto the day is the evil of the night before. I must throw off the shadows and get a fresh hold. After all, in some ways it might have been worse: the air in my cell was good; I had more blankets than I needed; my bed was not very uncomfortable; and there were no vermin. This last was really what I dreaded most. My cell is clean and well ventilated; surely those are blessings which ought to counterbalance much else. So I start the new day with courage and undiminished interest in my great experiment. * * * * * One of my fellow prisoners, whose comment I quoted in Chapter II, makes the following statement about the condition of the cells at Auburn. "The cells on the second and basement tiers smell fairly well; but in summer the stench from some of the cells is terrible." Due, of course, to long use, no sewage, and no proper system of ventilation. In most of the cells the small square hole which opens into some crude sort of ventilating flue has long ago been plugged to prevent the inroads of vermin. I seem to have been very fortunate in having a cell where discomfort was reduced to a minimum. The condition of some of the cells I have seen in Sing Sing Prison is unspeakably bad. They are close, dark, damp, foul. To call them unfit for human habitation is to give them undeserved dignity; they are unfit for pigs. CHAPTER VI TUESDAY MORNING In my cell, after dinner; Tuesday, September 30. At about seven o'clock this morning the long iron bar, which locks the whole tier, is raised; and the Captain pauses a moment at my cell. "Good morning, Thomas, how did you get through the night?" "I didn't sleep very well, sir." "They seldom do the first night. How are you feeling now?" "Well, fairly good third rate, thank you, sir." He leaves me; but soon returns along the gallery, unlocking the levers as he comes. Immediately after him walks his trusty, one of the gallery boys, pressing down the levers and letting us out of the stone caves where we have spent the long night. I breathe a sigh of relief and satisfaction as I swing open the iron grating and come out upon the comparative freedom of the gallery.