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128 door being left wide open. I saw this done as I was going to dinner. While the men were upstairs recovering from la soupe, the gentleman-inspectors were invited downstairs to look at a specimen of the Directeur's kindness—a kindness which he could not restrain even in the case of those who were guilty of some terrible wrong. (The little Belgian with the Broken Arm, alias the Machine-Fixer, missed not a word nor a gesture of all this; and described the scene to me with an indignation which threatened his sanity.) Then, while les hommes were in the cour for the afternoon, the sweepers were rushed to The Enormous Room, which they cleaned to beat the band with the fear of Hell in them; after which, the Directeur led his amiable guests leisurely upstairs and showed them the way the men kept their quarters; kept them without dictation on the part of the officials, so fond were they of what was to them one and all more than a delightful temporary residence—was in fact a home. From The Enormous Room the procession wended a gentle way to the women's quarters (scrubbed and swept in anticipation of their arrival) and so departed; conscious—no doubt—that in the Directeur France had found a rare specimen of whole-hearted and efficient generosity.

Upon being sentenced to cabinot, whether for writing an intercepted letter, fighting, threatening a planton, or committing some minor offense for the nth time, a man took one blanket from his bed, carried it downstairs to the cachot, and disappeared therein for a night or many days and nights as the case might be. Before entering he was thoroughly searched and temporarily deprived of the contents of his pockets, whatever they might include. It was made certain that he had no cigarettes nor tobacco in any other form upon his person, and no matches. The door was locked behind him and double and triple locked-to judge by the sound-by a planton, usually the Black Holster, who on such occasions produced a ring of enormous keys suggestive of a burlesque jailer. Within the stone walls of his dungeon (into which a beam of light no bigger than a ten-cent piece, and in some cases no