Ten of us from the wine dump were lined up at the desk. The officer in charge said to the man at the desk. “We’ll vag the chronics and charge the new ones with drunk.” The chronic winos gave their names, etc., and were hurried away down the corridor. Another chap and I were the only “new ones.” We answered all questions without angering anybody and getting knocked down. I protested that I wasn’t drunk. The desk man said: “Oh, that’s all right, you can go out in the morning at five o’clock on the broom.” They searched me, but took nothing except a pocketknife. We were put in a large cell about twenty feet square, directly across the corridor from the desk where prisoners were received and registered. The front of this cell was of upright iron bars and admitted plenty of light from the corridor. The cell was foul smelling from a fixture in one corner that seemed to connect directly with a sewer. A broken water faucet leaked continually, with a hissing sound. About ten men were there, some sleeping on the damp asphalt floor, some on the benches that lined the wall; some stood expectantly at the front waiting to be released, others squatted on their haunches in the corners, staring vacantly at the floor. I sat on the bench and wondered about “going out on the broom” in the morning. I could have asked my cellmates. I looked for the other “new one” that came with me from the wine dump; he was asleep on the floor. I decided not to ask, but to wait till morning and find out for myself. Even at that age I had stumbled upon one truth, and that is, The best way to get misinformed is to ask a lot of questions. Nearly all my life has been spent in the company of unfortunate people, and while I never looked upon myself as an unfortunate, I was always accepted as one of them. Whatever knowledge I have of them was gleaned by looking and listening, and it is much more accurate than any I could have got by asking impertinent and close-up questions. Your best friend would give you a surly answer if you were to ask him the time of day an hour after his watch had been stolen. Ask any one-legged stranger how he lost his limb, and you will get something like this: “Well, you see, it was this way—I got run over by a ferryboat.” Of all the many friends I have made since I gave up my larcenous life, “Shorty” is one of the most respected and highly prized. His friends are legion, and in every state in the Union; not that Shorty has traveled there and made friends of them, but that they have traveled here and made a friend of him.