“Then when you have been here two weeks,” added Chapin, rather ruminatively (he had forgot to state this to Cowperwood before), “the warden ’ll come and git yuh and give yuh yer regular cell summers down-stairs.  Yuh kin make up yer mind by that time what y’u’d like tuh do, what y’u’d like to work at.  If you behave yourself proper, more’n like they’ll give yuh a cell with a yard.  Yuh never can tell.”

He went out, locking the door with a solemn click; and Cowperwood stood there, a little more depressed than he had been, because of this latest intelligence.  Only two weeks, and then he would be transferred from this kindly old man’s care to another’s, whom he did not know and with whom he might not fare so well.

“If ever you want me for anything—­if ye’re sick or sumpin’ like that,” Chapin now returned to say, after he had walked a few paces away, “we have a signal here of our own.  Just hang your towel out through these here bars.  I’ll see it, and I’ll stop and find out what yuh want, when I’m passin’.”

Cowperwood, whose spirits had sunk, revived for the moment.

“Yes, sir,” he replied; “thank you, Mr. Chapin.”

The old man walked away, and Cowperwood heard his steps dying down the cement-paved hall.  He stood and listened, his ears being greeted occasionally by a distant cough, a faint scraping of some one’s feet, the hum or whir of a machine, or the iron scratch of a key in a lock.  None of the noises was loud.  Rather they were all faint and far away.  He went over and looked at the bed, which was not very clean and without linen, and anything but wide or soft, and felt it curiously.  So here was where he was to sleep from now on—­he who so craved and appreciated luxury and refinement.  If Aileen or some of his rich friends should see him here.  Worse, he was sickened by the thought of possible vermin.  How could he tell?  How would he do?  The one chair was abominable.  The skylight was weak.  He tried to think of himself as becoming accustomed to the situation, but he re-discovered the offal pot in one corner, and that discouraged him.  It was possible that rats might come up here—­it looked that way.  No pictures, no books, no scene, no person, no space to walk—­just the four bare walls and silence, which he would be shut into at night by the thick door.  What a horrible fate!

He sat down and contemplated his situation.  So here he was at last in the Eastern Penitentiary, and doomed, according to the judgment of the politicians (Butler among others), to remain here four long years and longer.  Stener, it suddenly occurred to him, was probably being put through the same process he had just gone through.  Poor old Stener!  What a fool he had made of himself.  But because of his foolishness he deserved all he was now getting.  But the difference between himself and Stener was that they would let Stener out.  It was possible that already they were easing his punishment in some