on to dinner? Will you want to make the regular inspection tour of the prison?"
"Oh, sure," yawned the chairman. "Undoubtedly, everything is all right, as usual, but if we omitted it the newspapers would have something to howl about."
He rose, and, with the rest of the commission trailing them, followed the warden to the dining-room.
"Well, let's make the inspection and have it over with," Stevenson suggested, when the meal was finished. "Where do we go first, warden?"
"Through the shops and smaller buildings first, then the cells. That way you'll end up closest to the administration building and you can go back into conference with the least delay."
Uniformed guards stood smartly at attention as the warden piloted the commission through. "Trusties" ingratiatingly hovered about the party, eager to be of service. Great steel-barred doors swung open at the approach of the commission and clanged nosily behind it. The afternoon sunlight, slanting through the bars, relieved the somberness of the cell blocks and revealed them in their spick-and-spanness, made ready for the occasion.
"Well, everything seems to be O.K.," said the chairman, as the party again drew near to the offices. "Anyone else got any suggestions?"
"Yes, I'd like to see the dark cell," answered the secretary. "I don't recall ever visiting it, and that fellow Ellis interest me. He said it was a pocket edition of Hades. Where is it, warden?"
The ward assumed a jocular air.
"You'll be disappointed," he warned. "It's down in the basement, where prisoners who want to do so can yell and scream to their hearts' content without disturbing anyone. A trifle dark, of course, but if to some it is hell it is because they choose to make it so. If you really want to see it, come ahead. It's not occupied, however."
He did not mention that he had seen to that. With all this uproar about the management of the prison, it wasn't safe to take chances. The commission, he had foreseen, might decide to make a real investigation, and you never could tell in just what condition a man would be after several hours in "solitary."
"There you are gentlemen?" he said, with a flourish of the hand when a "trusty" had switched on the lights in the basement. "Not one dark cell, but half a dozen."
He stood back as the members of the commission crowded forward and peered into the dark recesses. Over each doorway a single electric bulb shone weakly, far too weakly for the rays to penetrate into the corners. The solid, bolt-studded doors stood open, formidable and forbidding.
"Any of you want try it?" asked the warden from the background.
"Sure, let Blalock take a whirl at one of them," suggested the secretary. "His conscience ought to be clear enough not to trouble him. Go on, doctor; try it and let us know how it feels. I'd do it myself, but I don't dare risk my conscience."
Blalock, standing just inside the doorway of one of the cells, turned and for a moment surveyed them in silence.
"Your suggestion, of course, was made in jest," he said. "But," a sudden ring came into his voice, "I am going to take you up on it! No," as a chorus of exclamations came from the others, "my mind is quite made up. Warden, I want this as realistic as possible. You will please provide me with a suit of the regulation convict clothing."
"Well, of all the blamed fools," ejaculated the chairman. then he gave his shoulders a shrug. "Go on and get a zebra suit, warden. I only hope this doesn't get into the papers."
A "trusty" was dispatched for the striped suit. When it had been brought Blalock already had removed his outer garments, amid the banter of the others. He did not deign to answer them until he had buttoned about him the prison jacket and jammed upon his head the little striped cap.
"I guess I'm ready," he said then. "You gentlemen have seen fit to ridicule
