At this moment the face of the warder appeared at the peephole in the door.

  'I trust you realize the enormity of your offence and the justice of your punishment? said Mr Prendergast in a loud voice. 'Pray for penitence.

  A warder came into the cell.

  'Sorry to disturb you, sir, but I've got to take this one to see the Governor. There's D.4.18 down the way been asking for you for days. I said I'd tell you, only, if you'll forgive my saying so, I shouldn't be too soft with 'im, sir. We know 'im of old. 'E's a sly old devil, begging your pardon, sir, and 'e's only religious when 'e thinks it'll pay.

  'I think that I am the person to decide that, officer, said Mr Prendergast with some dignity. 'You may take D.4.12 to the Governor.

  Sir Wilfred Lucas‑Dockery had not been intended by nature or education for the Governor of a prison; his appointment was the idea of a Labour Home Secretary who had been impressed by an appendix on the theory of penology which he had contributed to a report on the treatment of 'Conscientious Objectors'. Up to that time Sir Wilfred had held the Chair of Sociology at a Midland university; only his intimate friends and a few specially favoured pupils knew that behind his mild and professional exterior he concealed an ardent ambition to serve in the public life of his generation. He stood twice for Parliament, but so diffidently that his candidature passed almost unnoticed. Colonel MacAdder, his predecessor in office, a veteran of numberless unrecorded carnpaigns on the Afghan frontier, had said to him on his retirement: 'Good luck, Sir Wilfred! If I may give you a piece of advice, it's this. Don't bother about the lower warders or the prisoners. Give hell to the man immediately below you, and you can rely on him to pass it on with interest. If you make a prison bad enough, people'll take jolly good care to keep out of it. That's been my policy all through, and I'm proud of it' (a policy which soon became quite famous in the society of Cheltenham Spa).

  Sir Wilfred, however, had his own ideas. 'You must understand, he said to Paul, 'that it is my aim to establish personal contact with each of the men under my care. I want you to take a pride in your prison and in your work here. So far as possible, I like the prisoners to carry on with their avocations in civilized life. What's this man's profession, officer?

  'White Slave traffic, sir.

  'Ah yes. Well, I'm afraid you won't have much opportunity for that here. What else have you done?

  'I was nearly a clergyman once, said Paul.

  'Indeed? Well, I hope in time, if I find enough men with the same intention, to get together a theological class. You've no doubt met the Chaplain, a very broad-minded man. Still for the present we are only at the beginning. The Government regulations are rather uncompromising. For the first four weeks you will have to observe the solitary confinement ordained by law. After that we will find you something more creative. We don't want you to feel that your personality is being stamped out. Have you any experience of art leather work?

  'No, sir.

  'Well, I might put you into the Arts and Crafts Workshop. I came to the conclusion many years ago that almost all crime is due to the repressed desire for aesthetic expression. At last we have the opportunity for testing it. Are you an extrovert or an introvert?

  'I'm afraid I'm not sure, sir.

  'So few people are. I'm trying to induce the Home Office to install an official psycho‑analyst. Do you read the New Nation, I wonder? There is rather a flattering article this week about our prison called The Lucas-Dockery Experiments. I like the prisoners to know these things. It gives them corporate pride. I may give you one small example of the work we are doing that affects your own case. Up till now all offences connected with prostitution have been put into the sexual category. Now I hold that an offence of your kind is essentially acquisitive and shall grade it accordingly. It does not, of course, make any difference as far as your conditions of imprisonment are concerned ‑ the routine of penal servitude is prescribed by Standing Orders ‑ but you see what a difference it makes to the annual statistics.

  'The human touch, said Sir Wilfred after Paul had been led from the room. 'I'm sure it makes all the difference. You could see with that unfortunate man just now what a difference it made to him to think that, far from being a mere nameless slave, he has now become part of a great revolution in statistics.

  'Yes, sir, said the Chief Warder, 'and, by the way, there are two more attempted suicides being brought up to‑morrow. You must really be more strict with them, sir. Those sharp tools you've issued to the Arts and Crafts School is just putting temptation in the men's way.

  * * *

  Paul was once more locked in, and for the first time had the opportunity of examining his cell. There was little to interest him. Besides his Bible, his book of devotion ‑ Prayers on Various Occasions of Illness, Uncertainty, and Loss, by the Rev. Septimus Bead, M.A., Edinburgh, 1863 ‑ and his English Grammar, there was a little glazed pint pot, a knife and spoon, a slate and slate-pencil, a salt-jar, a metal water‑can, two earthenware vessels, some cleaning materials, a plank bed upright against the wall, a roll of bedding, a stool, and a table. A printed notice informed him that he was not to look out of the window. Three printed cards on the wall contained a list of other punishable offences, which seemed to include every human activity, some Church of England prayers, and an explanation of the 'system of progressive stages'. There was also a typewritten 'Thought for the Day', one of Sir Wilfred Lucas‑Dockery's little innovations. The message for the first day of Paul's imprisonment was: 'SENSE OF SIN IS SENSE OF WASTE, the Editor of the "Sunday Express". Paul studied the system of progressive stages with interest. After four weeks, he read, he would be allowed to join in associated labour, to take half an hour's exercise on Sundays, to wear a stripe on his arm, if illiterate to have school instruction, to take one work of fiction from the library weekly, and, if special application were made to the Governor, to exhibit four photographs of his relatives or of approved friends; after eight weeks, provided that his conduct was perfectly satisfactory, he rnight receive a visit of twenty minutes' duration and write and receive a letter. Six weeks later he might receive another visit and another letter and another library book weekly.

  Would Davy Lennox's picture of the back of Margot's head be accepted as the photograph of an approved friend, he wondered?

  After a time his door was unlocked again and opened a few inches. A hand thrust in a tin, and a voice said, 'Pint pot quick! Paul's mug was filled with cocoa, and the door was again locked. The tin contained bread, bacon, and beans. That was the last interruption for fourteen hours. Paul fell into a reverie. It was the first time he had been really alone for months. How very refreshing it was, he reflected.

  * * *

  The next four weeks of solitary confinement were among the happiest of Paul's life. The physical comforts were certainly meagre, but at the Ritz Paul had learned to appreciate the inadequacy of purely physical comfort. It was so exhilarating, he found, never to have to make any decision on any subject, to be wholly relieved from the srnallest consideration of time, meals, or clothes, to have no anxiety ever about what kind of impression he was making; in fact, to be free. At some rather chilly time in the early morning a bell would ring, and the warder would say, 'Slops outside! ; he would rise, roll up his bedding, and dress; there was no need to shave, no hesitation about what tie he should wear, none of the fidgeting with studs and collars and links that so distracts the waking moments of civilized man. He felt like the happy people in the advertisements for shaving soap who seem to have achieved very simply that peace of mind so distant and so desirable in the early morning. For about an hour he stitched away at a mail‑bag, until his door was again unlocked to admit a hand with a lump of bread and a large ladle of porridge. After breakfast he gave a cursory polish to the furniture and crockery of his cell and did some more sewing until the bell rang for chapel. For a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes he heard Mr Prendergast blaspheming against the beauties of sixteenth-century diction. This was certainly a bore, and so was the next hour during which he had to march round the prison square, where between concentric paths of worn asphalt a few melancholy cabbages showed their heads. Some of the men during this period used to fall out under the pretence of tying a shoe‑lace and take furtive bites at the leaves of the vegetables. If observed they were severely punished. Paul never felt any temptation to do this. After that the day was unbroken save for luncheon, supper, and the Governor's inspection. The heap of sacking which every day he was to turn into mail‑bags wa‑s supposed by law to keep him busy for nine hours. The prisoners in the cells on either side of him, who were not quite in their right minds, the warder told Paul, found some difficulty in finishing their task before lights out. Paul found that with the least exertion he had finished long before supper, and spent the evenings in meditation and in writing up on his slate the thoughts which had occurred to him during the day.

  CHAPTER II The Lucas-Dockery Experiments

  Sir Wilfred Lucas-Dockery, as has already been suggested, combined ambition, scholarship, and genuine optimism in a degree rarely found in his office. He looked forward to a time when the Lucas‑Dockery experiments should be recognized as the beginning of a new epoch in penology, and he rehearsed in his mind sentences from the social histories of the future which would contain such verdicts as 'One of the few important events of this Labour Government's brief tenure of power was the appointment as Governor of Blackstone Gaol of Sir Wilfred Lucas‑Dockery. The administration of this intrepid and far‑seeing official is justly regarded as the foundation of the present system of criminal treatment. In fact, it may safely be said that no single man occupies so high a place in the history of the social reform of his century, etc.

  His eminent qualities, however, did not keep him from many severe differences of opinion with the Chief Warder. He was sitting in his study one day working at a memorandum for the Prison Commissioners- one of the neglected series of memoranda whose publication after his retirement indicated Sir Wilfred's claim to be the pioneer of artificial sunlight in prisons ‑ when the Chief Warder interrupted him.

  'A bad report from the Bookbinding Shop, sir. The instructor says that a practice is growing among the men of eating the paste issued to them for their work. They say it is preferable to their porridge. We shall either have to put on another warder to supervise the bookbinding or introduce something into the paste which will make it unpalatable.

  'Has the paste any nutritive value? asked Sir Wilfred.

  'I couldn't say, sir.

  'Weigh the men in the Bookbinding Shop, and then report to me any increase in weight. How many times must I ask you to ascertain all the facts before reporting on any case?

  'Very good, sir! And there's a petition from D.4.12. He's finished his four week's solitary, and he wants to know if he can keep at it for another four.

  'I disapprove of cellular labour. It makes a man introvert. Who is D.4.12?

  'Long sentence, sir, waiting transference to Egdon.

  'I'll see D.4.12 myself.

  'Very good, sir!

  Paul was led in.

  'I understand you wish to continue cellular labour instead of availing yourself of the privilege of working in association. Why is that?

  'I find it so much more interesting, sir, said Paul.

  'It's a most irregular suggestion, said the Chief Warder. 'Privileges can only be forfeited by a breach of the regulations witnessed and attested by two officers. Standing Orders are most emphatic on the subject.

  'I wonder whether you have narcissistic tendencies? said the Governor. 'The Home Office has not as yet come to any decision about my application for a staff psychoanalyst.

  'Put him in the observation cell, said the Chief Warder. 'That brings out any insanity. I've known several cases of men you could hardly have told were mad ‑ just eccentric, you know ‑ who've been put on observation, and after a few days they've been raving lunatics. Colond MacAdder was a great believer in the observation cells.

  'Did you lead a very lonely life before conviction? Perhaps you were a shepherd or a lighthouse‑keeper, or something of the kind?

  'No, sir.

  'Most curious. Well, I will consider your case and give you my answer later.

  Paul was led back to his cell, and next day was again summoned before the Governor.

  'I have considered your application, said Sir Wilfred, 'with the most minute care. In fact, I have decided to include it in my forthcoming work on the criminal mind. Perhaps you would like to hear what I have written about you?

  Case R., he read:

  A young man of respectable family and some education. No previous criminal record. Committed to seven years' penal servitude for traffic in prostitution. Upon completing his first four weeks R. petitioned for extension of cellular labour. Treatment as prescribed by Standing Orders: either (a) detention in observation cell for the Medical Officer to satisfy himself about the state of the prisoner's mind, or (b)compulsory work in association with other prisoners unless privilege forfeited by misdeamenour.

  Treatmcnt by Sir Wilfred Lucas‑Dockery. ‑ I decided that R. was suffering from misanthropic tendencies induced by a sense of his own inferiority in the presence of others. R.'s crime was the result of an attempt to assert individuality at the expense of community. (Cf. Cases D, G, and I.) Accordingly I attempted to break down his social inhibitions by a series of progressive steps. In the first stage he exercised for half an hour in the company of one other prisoner. Conversation was allowed during this period upon approved topics, history, philosophy, public events, etc., the prisoners being chosen among those whose crimes would tend as little as possible to aggravate and encourage R.'s.

  'I have not yet thought out the other stages of your treatment, said Sir Wilfred, 'but you can see that individual attention is being paid to your reclamation. It may cause you some gratification to realize that, thanks to my report, you may in time become a case of scientific interest throughout the world. Sir Wilfred Lucas‑Dockery's treatment of Case R. may haply become a precedent for generations yet unborn. That is something to lift you above the soul‑destroying monotony of routine, is it not?

  Paul was led away.

  'The men in the kitchen have lodged a complaint that they cannot work with C.2.9, said the Chief Warder. 'They say he has an infectious skin disease all over his hands.

  'I can't be worried with things like that, said the Governor irritably. 'I am trying to decide upon Case R.'s ‑ I mean D.4.12's ‑ third stage of reclamation.

  * * *

  Case R. of the Lucas‑Dockery experiments began on the new régime that afternoon.

  'Come out, said the warder, unlocking his cell, 'and bring your 'at.

  The parade ground, empty of its revolving squads, looked particularly desolate.

  'Stand there and don't move till I come back, said the warder.

  Presently he returned with a little bony figure in prison dress.

  'This 'ere's your pal, he said, 'this 'ere's the path you've got to walk on. Neither of you is to touch the other or any part of 'is clothing. Nothing is to be passed from one to the other. You are to keep at a distance of one yard and talk of 'istory, philosophy, or kindred subjects. When I rings the bell you stops talking, see? Your pace is to be neither quicker nor slower than average walking‑pace. Them's the Governor's instructions, and Gawd 'elp yer if yer does anything wrong. Now walk.

  'This is a silly dodge, said the little man. 'I've been in six prisons, and I never seen nothing to touch it. Most irregular. You doesn't know where you are these days. This blinking prison is going to the dogs. Look at the Chaplain. Wears a wig!

  'Are you here for long? asked Paul politely.

  'Not this time. They couldn't get a proper charge against me. "Six months for loitering with intent." They'd been watching me for weeks, but I wasn't going to let them have a chance this time. Now six months is a very decent little sentence, if you take my meaning. One picks up with old friends, and you like it all the more when you comes out. I never minds six months. What's more, I'm known here, so I always gets made "landing cleaner". I expect you've seen me hand often enough coming round with the grub. The warders know me, see, so they always keeps the job open for me if they hears I'm coming back. If you're nice to 'em the first two or three times you're 'ere, they'll probably do the same for you.

  'Is it a very good job?

  'Well, not as jobs go, but it's a nice start. The best job of all is Reception‑cleaner. One doesn't get that for years, unless you've special recommendations. You see, you has all the people coming in fresh from outside, and you hears all the news and gets tobacco sometimes and racing tips. Did you see the cleaner when you came in? Know who he is?

  'Yes, said Paul, 'as a matter of fact, I do. He's called Philbrick.

  'No, no, old man, you've got the wrong chap. I mean a big stout man. Talks a lot about hotels and restaurants.

  'Yes, that's the man I mean.

  'Why, don't you know who that is? That's the Governor's brother: Sir Solomon Lucas‑Dockery. Told me so hisself. 'Ere for arson. Burnt a castle in Wales. You can see he's a toff.

  CHAPTER III The Death of a Modern Churchman

  Some days later Paul entered on another phase of his reclamation. When he came into the prison‑square for his afternoon exercise he found that his companion's place had been taken by a burly man of formidable aspect. He had red hair and beard, and red‑rimmed eyes, and vast red hands which twirled convulsively at his sides. He turned his ox‑like eyes on Paul and gave a slight snarl of welcome.

  'Your new pal, said the warder. 'Get on with it.

  'How do you do? said Paul politely. 'Are you here for long?

  'Life, said the other. 'But it doesn't matter much. I look daily for the Second Coming.

  They marched on in silence.

  'Do you think that this a good plan of the Governor's? asked Paul.