The rat-eyed trusty was standing in the doorway, beckoning. 9009 followed him across the yard into the cell-house, up two flights of iron stairs, along a narrow steel platform, past a long row of steel-barred doors, back to his cell. Following the prison regulations he must pass his first day in his cell.
The night before, he had thrown his bedding upon the narrow bunk and, stretching upon it, had immediately sunk into a brutish sleep. Now he looked about him.
The place was steel-walled, steel-ceilinged, steel-floored. Against the bottom wall was the bunk upon which his bedding was heaped. As he sat upon the iron rod forming the edge of this bunk, he had to bend forward so as not to hit with his head the second bunk, above. The upper bunk was without tenant that day. The cell was wide as the length of the bunks—about seven feet—and of less depth. That is, between the bunk and the door, there was just enough room to allow a man to pace the two or three steps allowed by the width; two men could not do it. The
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