Wednesday's breakfast consists of hash, with the usual accompaniments of boot-leg and punk. I was told in the shop yesterday what to expect. The smell of the mess-room is beginning to be unpleasant, perhaps owing to the change in temperature. If so, what it must be on a moist warm day in summer, or on a wet day in winter when the steam is turned on, I hate to think. The hash is not so good as yesterday's porridge. Moreover it is rendered distinctly less appetizing by the amount of bone and gristle which I find chopped up in it. I hope I am not unduly fastidious in such matters, and an occasional inedible morsel I should not criticize; but an average of two or three pieces of bone and gristle to a mouthful seems to me excessive. Back in my cell I write my promised letter on behalf of Dickinson; but the minutes before shop time pass so quickly that when the lever is pressed down I am not ready, and so have to make a grab for my coat and cap and fall in toward the end of the line on the gallery. During the halt at the door, however, I regain my place--third in line on the left. The rain has come, but, fortunately, it is little more than a mist. It gives me a chance, however, to venture a mild pleasantry. When the Captain is out of hearing I whisper, with as English an accent as possible, "Oh, dear me! Where did I leave my umber-rella?" a remark which causes unseemly snickers from those within hearing. The joke is quite in character, as those I hear turn largely on the various hardships and privations of prison life; although the one huge, massive, gigantic joke, which is always fresh and pointed, is the current rate of payment for a prisoner's work--one cent and a half a day. Before this monumental and gorgeous piece of humor all other jokes seem flat and pointless. On the march down the yard to the shop we pass the Warden. He lets us go by without any sign of recognition, which gives me another chance to get a laugh from my comrades. I whisper, "So that is the way my old friends treat me!" Apparently the prisoners can appreciate a joke better than an official; I am still a bit resentful at the way that excessively bored Bertillon clerk received my attempt at humor. Arrived at the shop I go directly to my bench, and turning around am greeted by the cheery face of my partner. He comes up behind me, for he marches somewhere in the rear. "Well, Brown, how did you get by last night?" "Better, thank you, Jack!" "Well, of course you will find it hard for the first week or two, but after that you will be O. K." By which it will be seen that my partner likes a joke as well as the next man. Then as we hang up our caps and coats and get ready for work he continues, "A new man always does find it hard to sleep when he is thinking of a wife or mother or someone else at home; but as soon as the mist clears away he begins to see and think more clearly."