Chapter LV

In the meanwhile Cowperwood had been transferred to a new overseer and a new cell in Block 3 on the ground door, which was like all the others in size, ten by sixteen, but to which was attached the small yard previously mentioned.  Warden Desmas came up two days before he was transferred, and had another short conversation with him through his cell door.

“You’ll be transferred on Monday,” he said, in his reserved, slow way.  “They’ll give you a yard, though it won’t be much good to you—­we only allow a half-hour a day in it.  I’ve told the overseer about your business arrangements.  He’ll treat you right in that matter.  Just be careful not to take up too much time that way, and things will work out.  I’ve decided to let you learn caning chairs.  That’ll be the best for you.  It’s easy, and it’ll occupy your mind.”

The warden and some allied politicians made a good thing out of this prison industry.  It was really not hard labor—­the tasks set were simple and not oppressive, but all of the products were promptly sold, and the profits pocketed.  It was good, therefore, to see all the prisoners working, and it did them good.  Cowperwood was glad of the chance to do something, for he really did not care so much for books, and his connection with Wingate and his old affairs were not sufficient to employ his mind in a satisfactory way.  At the same time, he could not help thinking, if he seemed strange to himself, now, how much stranger he would seem then, behind these narrow bars working at so commonplace a task as caning chairs.  Nevertheless, he now thanked Desmas for this, as well as for the sheets and the toilet articles which had just been brought in.

“That’s all right,” replied the latter, pleasantly and softly, by now much intrigued by Cowperwood.  “I know that there are men and men here, the same as anywhere.  If a man knows how to use these things and wants to be clean, I wouldn’t be one to put anything in his way.”

The new overseer with whom Cowperwood had to deal was a very different person from Elias Chapin.  His name was Walter Bonhag, and he was not more than thirty-seven years of age—­a big, flabby sort of person with a crafty mind, whose principal object in life was to see that this prison situation as he found it should furnish him a better income than his normal salary provided.  A close study of Bonhag would have seemed to indicate that he was a stool-pigeon of Desmas, but this was really not true except in a limited way.  Because Bonhag was shrewd and sycophantic, quick to see a point in his or anybody else’s favor, Desmas instinctively realized that he was the kind of man who could be trusted to be lenient on order or suggestion.  That is, if Desmas had the least interest in a prisoner he need scarcely say so much to Bonhag; he might merely suggest that this man was used to a different kind of life, or that, because of some past experience, it might