"You'll have to put this on," Kuby said, and opened it in such a way that it could be put over Cowperwood's head.
Cowperwood understood.
He had heard of it in some way, in times past.
He was a little shocked—looked at it first with a touch of real surprise, but a moment after lifted his hands and helped pull it down.
"Never mind," cautioned the guard, "put your hands down.
I'll get it over."
Cowperwood dropped his arms.
When it was fully on, it came to about his chest, giving him little means of seeing anything.
He felt very strange, very humiliated, very downcast.
This simple thing of a blue-and-white striped bag over his head almost cost him his sense of self-possession.
Why could not they have spared him this last indignity, he thought?
"This way," said his attendant, and he was led out to where he could not say.
"If you hold it out in front you can see to walk," said his guide; and Cowperwood pulled it out, thus being able to discern his feet and a portion of the floor below.
He was thus conducted—seeing nothing in his transit—down a short walk, then through a long corridor, then through a room of uniformed guards, and finally up a narrow flight of iron steps, leading to the overseer's office on the second floor of one of the two-tier blocks.
There, he heard the voice of Kuby saying:
"Mr. Chapin, here's another prisoner for you from Mr. Kendall."
"I'll be there in a minute," came a peculiarly pleasant voice from the distance.
Presently a big, heavy hand closed about his arm, and he was conducted still further.
"You hain't got far to go now," the voice said, "and then I'll take that bag off," and Cowperwood felt for some reason a sense of sympathy, perhaps—as though he would choke.
The further steps were not many.
A cell door was reached and unlocked by the inserting of a great iron key.
It was swung open, and the same big hand guided him through.
A moment later the bag was pulled easily from his head, and he saw that he was in a narrow, whitewashed cell, rather dim, windowless, but lighted from the top by a small skylight of frosted glass three and one half feet long by four inches wide.
For a night light there was a tin-bodied lamp swinging from a hook near the middle of one of the side walls.
A rough iron cot, furnished with a straw mattress and two pairs of dark blue, probably unwashed blankets, stood in one corner.
There was a hydrant and small sink in another.
A small shelf occupied the wall opposite the bed.
A plain wooden chair with a homely round back stood at the foot of the bed, and a fairly serviceable broom was standing in one corner.
There was an iron stool or pot for excreta, giving, as he could see, into a large drain-pipe which ran along the inside wall, and which was obviously flushed by buckets of water being poured into it.
Rats and other vermin infested this, and it gave off an unpleasant odor which filled the cell.
The floor was of stone.
Cowperwood's clear-seeing eyes took it all in at a glance. He noted the hard cell door, which was barred and cross-barred with great round rods of steel, and fastened with a thick, highly polished lock.
He saw also that beyond this was a heavy wooden door, which could shut him in even more completely than the iron one.
There was no chance for any clear, purifying sunlight here.
Cleanliness depended entirely on whitewash, soap and water and sweeping, which in turn depended on the prisoners themselves.
He also took in Chapin, the homely, good-natured, cell overseer whom he now saw for the first time—a large, heavy, lumbering man, rather dusty and misshapen-looking, whose uniform did not fit him well, and whose manner of standing made him look as though he would much prefer to sit down.
He was obviously bulky, but not strong, and his kindly face was covered with a short growth of grayish-brown whiskers.
His hair was cut badly and stuck out in odd strings or wisps from underneath his big cap.
Nevertheless, Cowperwood was not at all unfavorably impressed—quite the contrary—and he felt at once that this man might be more considerate of him than the others had been. He hoped so, anyhow.
He did not know that he was in the presence of the overseer of the "manners squad," who would have him in charge for two weeks only, instructing him in the rules of the prison, and that he was only one of twenty-six, all told, who were in Chapin's care.
That worthy, by way of easy introduction, now went over to the bed and seated himself on it.
He pointed to the hard wooden chair, which Cowperwood drew out and sat on.
"Well, now you're here, hain't yuh?" he asked, and answered himself quite genially, for he was an unlettered man, generously disposed, of long experience with criminals, and inclined to deal kindly with kindly temperament and a form of religious belief—Quakerism—had inclined him to be merciful, and yet his official duties, as Cowperwood later found out, seemed to have led him to the conclusion that most criminals were innately bad.
Like Kendall, he regarded them as weaklings and ne'er-do-wells with evil streaks in them, and in the main he was not mistaken.
Yet he could not help being what he was, a fatherly, kindly old man, having faith in those shibboleths of the weak and inexperienced mentally—human justice and human decency.
"Yes, I'm here, Mr. Chapin," Cowperwood replied, simply, remembering his name from the attendant, and flattering the keeper by the use of it.
To old Chapin the situation was more or less puzzling.
This was the famous Frank A. Cowperwood whom he had read about, the noted banker and treasury-looter.
He and his co-partner in crime, Stener, were destined to serve, as he had read, comparatively long terms here.
Five hundred thousand dollars was a large sum of money in those days, much more than five million would have been forty years later.