Page:Anthony John (IA anthonyjohn00jero).pdf/151

 in uniform to see to his feeding and his clothing and his sleeping. At the proper times he would go to church. There would be a certain number of hours apportioned to him for exercise and even for recreation of an approved nature. And there would be times when his friends could come to see him. It had sounded to Emanuel Tetteridge as the description of a prison; but Mrs. Tetteridge had assured him it was a palace.

What further impressed him with the idea that it was to prison he was going was the information broken to him by Mrs. Tetteridge that before he could enter there he would have to take off his tweed suit and put on a black coat that buttoned close up to the neck, with a collar that fastened behind. Such, until his term of service was ended, would be his distinctive garb. He had put up opposition. But Mrs. Tetteridge had cried, and when she cried the hardness went out of her eyes and she looked very pretty and pathetic; and Tetteridge had felt himself a brute and a traitor to love. So the day had come when he had taken off his old tweed suit forever and had put on the long black coat that buttoned round the neck. And Mrs. Tetteridge had come to his assistance with the collar and had laughed and clapped her pretty hands and kissed him.