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.