Читать книгу Charles Peace, or The Adventures of a Notorious Burglar онлайн

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He was also informed that if he liked to pay another prisoner for cleaning his cell he could, by permission of the governor, have it done for him, but otherwise he would have to do it himself.

All these matters he knew, but he did not care to say so. He also knew by heart the printed list of rules to which his attention was next directed.

He said he was too ill to clean his own cell at present, and would rather pay another prisoner to do the work.

He was very clever at shamming illness, but on this occasion he really was in a weak state.

The door was shut with a horrid discordant sound, and Peace then was fairly caged, and felt miserable to the last degree.

He remained for some time moody and thoughtful. After awhile he rose from his seat, and proceeded to examine his narrow prison house. It was a stone or brick-arched room, some fourteen feet by seven; the furniture was in no way superfluous. A bedstead, consisting of the side walls of the apartment; polished steel staples were fixed in these walls, two on each side, at an elevation of about two feet and a half. The occupant’s mattress has two short steel hooks at each end, these are hooked into the staples, so he lies across his abode. A deal table, the size of a pocket-handkerchief, also a deal seat; a bright copper wash basin, fastened to the wall, with a water tap over it so ingeniously contrived, that turned to the right it sends a small stream into the basin, and to the left into a bottomless close stool at some little distance. There were three shelves in one corner.