and spent ten minutes in a large concrete tank, scrubbing themselves with coarse brown soap and warm water. They returned. The bath-trusty consulted with the trusty of the clothes room. Again Collins saw the sidelong looks from narrowed eyes, the incessant watching, and then the clothes-room trusty measured the three loosely. He was a bent little man, hollow-cheeked; his eyes roved, shifting from place to place like the sun gleam from a mirror in a boy’s hand; but always they flitted back to the bath-trusty. And the bath-trusty, in turn, watched him far more closely than he watched his three charges.
They were standing stark while the clothes-room trusty rummaged about shelves and drawers and made notes in an account book. Finally, he placed before each a little pile of clothing—underwear, a striped suit, a barred cap, and a pair of coarse lace shoes. On the back of each jacket, at the collar, was a square of white cloth, and on each square the bent little convict stamped in purple ink a number. Col-
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