And then a second voice:
“You don’t say.
Wot’s he like?”
And a third:
“Wot’s yer name, new man?
Don’t be scared. You ain’t no worse off than the rest of us.”
And then the first voice, answering number two:
“Kinda tall and skinny.
A kid. Looks a little like mamma’s boy, but not bad at dat.
Hey, you!
Tell us your name!”
And Clyde, amazed and dumb and pondering.
For how was one to take such an introduction as this?
What to say — what to do?
Should he be friendly with these men?
Yet, his instinct for tact prompting him even here to reply, most courteously and promptly:
“Clyde Griffiths.”
And one of the first voices continuing:
“Oh, sure!
We know who you are.
Welcome, Griffiths.
We ain’t as bad as we sound.
We been readin’ a lot about you, up dere in Bridgeburg.
We thought you’d be along pretty soon now.”
And another voice:
“You don’t want to be too down.
It ain’t so worse here.
At least de place is all right — a roof over your head, as dey say.”
And then a laugh from somewhere.
But Clyde, too horrified and sickened for words, was sadly gazing at the walls and door, then over at the Chinaman, who, silent at his door, was once more gazing at him.
Horrible!
Horrible!
And they talked to each other like that, and to a stranger among them so familiarly.
No thought for his wretchedness, his strangeness, his timidity — the horror he must be suffering.
But why should a murderer seem timid to any one, perhaps, or miserable?
Worst of all they had been speculating HERE as to how long it would be before he would be along which meant that everything concerning him was known here.
Would they nag — or bully — or make trouble for one unless one did just as they wished?
If Sondra, or any one of all the people he had known, should see or even dream of him as he was here now . . .
God!
— And his own mother was coming to-morrow.
And then an hour later, now evening, a tall, cadaverous guard in a more pleasing uniform, putting an iron tray with food on it through that hole in the door.
Food!
And for him here.
And that sallow, rickety Chinaman over the way taking his.
Whom had he murdered?
How?
And then the savage scraping of iron trays in the various cells!
Sounds that reminded him more of hungry animals being fed than men.
And some of these men were actually talking as they ate and scraped.
It sickened him.