They got up all sorts of inventions to get me out of the room, while it was being sliced, in order to secrete a part of it for their own use, the next day, and for that of their favorites among the prisoners. At first they had been able to impose upon my ignorance, but at this time I had learned just how much two hundred and eighty pounds of meat would divide to about four hundred people. I had learned their "tricks and their manners" also, so that it had become impossible for them to draw me from my object, which was, to see it equally divided. "An' sure ma'am," said Bridget O'Halloran; "we're wanting the pails from the hospital." In order to get the pails I must go to the outside door, blow my whistle to call a runner, wait till he came, and then order my pails. The hint was just in season. Allen had taken the first piece on her fork to commence carving. I said to her,-- "Don't cut that meat till I come back, not one slice." I then ordered in the pails, and bread--everything that would be wanted before dinner, and took my station at the table with the determination not to be drawn away from it upon any pretense. The smell of the meat to the poor, half-fed things was very savory, and they came around picking up the bits which fell off while it was being carved. "Please ma'am, give me a bone,--just the least bit of bone!" was the cry perpetually in my ears. And the bones I was forced to give to their importunity as fast as they were freed from the meat. To keep their fingers from that meat was like fighting eagles from a dead carcass. Bridget O'Halloran's ways were suspicious. I thought she had eluded my vigilance, and secreted some of it in spite of me. I kept watch of her motions for the rest of the day. I noticed that she visited the shed very frequently. If I wanted her I was continually obliged to send for her. At last I thought I would go myself and see what attraction that old shed had become so suddenly possessed of. When I discovered her she was stooping down in the middle of the building without any apparent object in view. "Bridget--I want you in the kitchen at this moment!" She was fumbling about her stocking. I stood looking at her while she was apparently arranging it. "What is the matter with your stocking, Bridget?" "Nothing, ma'am!" She colored, was confused, and started with the top of it in her hand. I let her pass on before me so as to get a better prospect of what was going on. From the glimpse that I got of her leg I thought she had been following the fashion--in adopting false calves. In hurrying her I had spoiled the proper adjustment of them, and they had slipped to her ankles. I intended to examine into the case when I reached the kitchen; but an explanation came by way of accident.