Cowperwood stood in the middle of the room without apparently looking at any one or anything, though he saw all. “Convict number 3633,” Kendall called to a clerk, handing him at the same time a yellow slip of paper on which was written Cowperwood’s full name and his record number, counting from the beginning of the penitentiary itself.
The underling, a convict, took it and entered it in a book, reserving the slip at the same time for the penitentiary “runner” or “trusty,” who would eventually take Cowperwood to the “manners” gallery.
“You will have to take off your clothes and take a bath,” said Kendall to Cowperwood, eyeing him curiously. “I don’t suppose you need one, but it’s the rule.”
“Thank you,” replied Cowperwood, pleased that his personality was counting for something even here. “Whatever the rules are, I want to obey.”
When he started to take off his coat, however, Kendall put up his hand delayingly and tapped a bell. There now issued from an adjoining room an assistant, a prison servitor, a weird-looking specimen of the genus “trusty.” He was a small, dark, lopsided individual, one leg being slightly shorter, and therefore one shoulder lower, than the other. He was hollow-chested, squint-eyed, and rather shambling, but spry enough withal. He was dressed in a thin, poorly made, baggy suit of striped jeans, the prison stripes of the place, showing a soft roll-collar shirt underneath, and wearing a large, wide-striped cap, peculiarly offensive in its size and shape to Cowperwood. He could not help thinking how uncanny the man’s squint eyes looked under its straight outstanding visor. The trusty had a silly, sycophantic manner of raising one hand in salute. He was a professional “second-story man,” “up” for ten years, but by dint of good behavior he had attained to the honor of working about this office without the degrading hood customary for prisoners to wear over the cap. For this he was properly grateful. He now considered his superior with nervous dog-like eyes, and looked at Cowperwood with a certain cunning appreciation of his lot and a show of initial mistrust.
One prisoner is as good as another to the average convict; as a matter of fact, it is their only consolation in their degradation that all who come here are no better than they. The world may have misused them; but they misuse their confreres in their thoughts. The “holier than thou” attitude, intentional or otherwise, is quite the last and most deadly offense within prison walls. This particular “trusty” could no more understand Cowperwood than could a fly the motions of a fly-wheel; but with the cocky superiority of the underling of the world he did not hesitate to think that he could. A crook was a crook to him—Cowperwood no less than the shabbiest pickpocket. His one feeling was that he would like to demean him, to pull him down to his own level.
“You will have to take everything you have out of your pockets,” Kendall now informed Cowperwood. Ordinarily he would have said, “Search the prisoner.”
Cowperwood stepped forward and laid out a purse with twenty-five dollars in it, a pen-knife, a lead-pencil, a small note-book, and a little ivory elephant which Aileen had given him once, “for luck,” and which he treasured solely because she gave it to him. Kendall looked at the latter curiously. “Now you can go on,” he said to the “trusty,” referring to the undressing and bathing process which was to follow.
“This way,” said the latter, addressing Cowperwood, and preceding him into an adjoining room, where three closets held three old-fashioned, iron-bodied, wooden-top bath-tubs, with their attendant shelves for rough crash towels, yellow soap, and the like, and hooks for clothes.
“Get in there,” said the trusty, whose name was Thomas Kuby, pointing to one of the tubs.
Cowperwood realized that this was the beginning of petty official supervision; but he deemed it wise to appear friendly even here.
“I see,” he said. “I will.”
“That’s right,” replied the attendant, somewhat placated. “What did you bring?”
Cowperwood looked at him quizzically. He did not understand. The prison attendant realized that this man did not know the lingo of the place. “What did you bring?” he repeated. “How many years did you get?”
“Oh!” exclaimed Cowperwood, comprehendingly. “I understand. Four and three months.”
He decided to humor the man. It would probably be better so.
“What for?” inquired Kuby, familiarly.
Cowperwood’s blood chilled slightly. “Larceny,” he said.
“Yuh got off easy,” commented Kuby. “I’m up for ten. A rube judge did that to me.”
Kuby had never heard of Cowperwood’s crime. He would not have understood its subtleties if he had. Cowperwood did not want to talk to this man; he did not know how. He wished he would go away; but that was not likely. He wanted to be put in his cell and let alone.
“That’s too bad,” he answered; and the convict realized clearly that this man was really not one of them, or he would not have said anything like that. Kuby went to the two hydrants opening into the bath-tub and turned them on. Cowperwood had been undressing the while, and now stood naked, but not ashamed, in front of this eighth-rate intelligence.
“Don’t forget to wash your head, too,” said Kuby, and went away.
Cowperwood stood there while the water ran, meditating on his fate. It was strange how life had dealt with him of late—so severely. Unlike most men in his position, he was not suffering from a consciousness of evil. He did not think he was evil. As he saw it, he was merely unfortunate. To think that he should be actually in this great, silent penitentiary, a convict, waiting here beside this cheap iron bathtub, not very sweet or hygienic to contemplate, with this crackbrained criminal to watch over him!
He stepped into the tub and washed himself briskly with the biting yellow soap, drying himself on one of the rough, only partially bleached towels. He looked for his underwear, but there was none. At this point the attendant looked in again. “Out here,” he said, inconsiderately.
Cowperwood followed, naked. He was led through the receiving overseer’s office into a room, where were scales, implements of measurement, a record-book, etc. The attendant who stood guard at the door now came over, and the clerk who sat in a corner automatically took down a record-blank. Kendall surveyed Cowperwood’s decidedly graceful figure, already inclining to a slight thickening around the waist, and approved of it as superior to that of most who came here. His skin, as he particularly noted, was especially white.
“Step on the scale,” said the attendant, brusquely.
Cowperwood did so. The former adjusted the weights and scanned the record carefully.
“Weight, one hundred and seventy-five,” he called. “Now step over here.”
He indicated a spot in the side wall where was fastened in a thin slat—which ran from the floor to about seven and one half feet above, perpendicularly—a small movable wooden indicator, which, when a man was standing under it, could be pressed down on his head. At the side of the slat were the total inches of height, laid off in halves, quarters, eighths, and so on, and to the right a length measurement for the arm. Cowperwood understood what was wanted and stepped under the indicator, standing quite straight.
“Feet level, back to the wall,” urged the attendant. “So. Height, five feet nine and ten-sixteenths,” he called. The clerk in the corner noted it. He now produced a tape-measure and began measuring Cowperwood’s arms, legs, chest, waist, hips, etc. He called out the color of his eyes, his hair, his mustache, and, looking into his mouth, exclaimed, “Teeth, all sound.”
After Cowperwood had once more given his address, age, profession, whether he knew any trade, etc.— which he did not—he was allowed to return to the bathroom, and put on the clothing which the prison provided for him—first the rough, prickly underwear, then the cheap soft roll-collar, white-cotton shirt, then the thick bluish-gray cotton socks of a quality such as he had never worn in his life, and over these a pair of indescribable rough-leather clogs, which felt to his feet as though they were made of wood or iron—oily and heavy. He then drew on the shapeless, baggy trousers with their telltale stripes, and over his arms and chest the loose-cut shapeless coat and waistcoat. He felt and knew of course that he looked very strange, wretched. And as he stepped out into the overseer’s room again he experienced a peculiar sense of depression, a gone feeling which before this had not assailed him and which now he did his best to conceal. This, then, was what society did to the criminal, he thought to himself. It took him and tore away from his body and his life the habiliments of his proper state and left him these. He felt sad and grim, and, try as he would—he could not help showing it for a moment. It was always his business and his intention to conceal his real feelings, but now it was not quite possible. He felt degraded, impossible, in these clothes, and he knew that he looked it. Nevertheless, he did his best to pull himself together and look unconcerned, willing, obedient, considerate of those above him. After all, he said to himself, it was all a play of sorts, a dream even, if one chose to view it so, a miasma even, from which, in the course of time and with a little luck one might emerge safely enough. He hoped so. It could not last. He was only acting a strange, unfamiliar
