in the Year of Our Lord 1913, men are lying in the jacket in the

dungeons of San Quentin.
I shall never forget, as long as further living and further lives be

vouchsafed me, my parting from Philadelphia Red that morning. He
had then been seventy-four hours in the jacket.

"Well, brother, you're still alive an' kickin'," he called to me, as
I was totteringly dragged from my cell into the corridor of

dungeons.
"Shut up, you, Red," the sergeant snarled at him.

"Forget it," was the retort.
"I'll get you yet, Red," the sergeant threatened.

"Think so?" Philadelphia Red queried sweetly, ere his tones turned
to savageness. "Why, you old stiff, you couldn't get nothin'. You

couldn't get a free lunch, much less the job you've got now, if it
wasn't for your brother's pull. An' I guess we all ain't mistaken

on the stink of the place where your brother's pull comes from."
It was admirable--the spirit of man rising above its extremity,

fearless of the hurt any brute of the system could inflict.
"Well, so long, brother," Philadelphia Red next called to me. "So

long. Be good, an' love the Warden. An' if you see 'em, just tell
'em that you saw me but that you didn't see me saw."

The sergeant was red with rage, and, by the receipt of various kicks
and blows, I paid for Red's pleasantry.

CHAPTER VIII
In solitary, in Cell One, Warden Atherton and Captain Jamie

proceeded to put me to the inquisition. As Warden Atherton said to
me:

"Standing, you're going to come across with that dynamite, or I'll
kill you in the jacket. Harder cases than you have come across

before I got done with them. You've got your choice--dynamite or
curtains."

"Then I guess it is curtains," I answered, "because I don't know of
any dynamite."

This irritated the Warden to immediate action. "Lie down," he
commanded.

I obeyed, for I had learned the folly of fighting three or four
strong men. They laced me tightly, and gave me a hundred hours.

Once each twenty-four hours I was permitted a drink of water. I had
no desire for food, nor was food offered me. Toward the end of the

hundred hours Jackson, the prison doctor, examined my physical
condition several times.

But I had grown too used to the jacket during my incorrigible days
to let a single jacketing injure me. Naturally, it weakened me,

took the life out of me; but I had learnedmuscular tricks for
stealing a little space while they were lacing me. At the end of

the first hundred hours' bout I was worn and tired, but that was
all. Another bout of this duration they gave me, after a day and a

night to recuperate. And then they gave one hundred and fifty
hours. Much of this time I was physically numb and mentally

delirious. Also, by an effort of will, I managed to sleep away long
hours.

Next, Warden Atherton tried a variation. I was given irregular
intervals of jacket and recuperation. I never knew when I was to go

into the jacket. Thus I would have ten hours' recuperation, and do
twenty in the jacket; or I would receive only four hours' rest. At

the most unexpected hours of the night my door would clang open and
the changing guards would lace me. Sometimes rhythms were

instituted. Thus, for three days and nights I alternated eight
hours in the jacket and eight hours out. And then, just as I was

growing accustomed to this rhythm, it was suddenly altered and I was
given two days and nights straight.

And ever the eternal question was propounded to me: Where was the
dynamite? Sometimes Warden Atherton was furious with me. On

occasion, when I had endured an extra severejacketing, he almost
pleaded with me to confess. Once he even promised me three months

in the hospital of absolute rest and good food, and then the trusty
job in the library.

Dr. Jackson, a weak stick of a creature with a smattering of
medicine, grew sceptical. He insisted that jacketing, no matter how

prolonged, could never kill me; and his insistence was a challenge
to the Warden to continue the attempt.

"These lean college guys 'd fool the devil," he grumbled. "They're
tougher 'n raw-hide. Just the same we'll wear him down. Standing,

you hear me. What you've got ain't a caution to what you're going
to get. You might as well come across now and save trouble. I'm a

man of my word. You've heard me say dynamite or curtains. Well,
that stands. Take your choice."

"Surely you don't think I'm holding out because I enjoy it?" I
managed to gasp, for at the moment Pie-Face Jones was forcing his

foot into my back in order to cinch me tighter, while I was trying
with my muscle to steal slack. "There is nothing to confess. Why,

I'd cut off my right hand right now to be able to lead you to any
dynamite."

"Oh, I've seen your educated kind before," he sneered. "You get
wheels in your head, some of you, that make you stick to any old

idea. You get baulky, like horses. Tighter, Jones; that ain't half
a cinch. Standing, if you don't come across it's curtains. I stick

by that."
One compensation I learned. As one grows weaker one is less

susceptible to suffering. There is less hurt because there is less
to hurt. And the man already well weakened grows weaker more

slowly. It is of common knowledge that unusually strong men suffer
more severely from ordinary sicknesses than do women or invalids.

As the reserves of strength are consumed there is less strength to
lose. After all superfluous flesh is gone what is left is stringy

and resistant. In fact, that was what I became--a sort of string-
like organism that persisted in living.

Morrell and Oppenheimer were sorry for me, and rapped me sympathy
and advice. Oppenheimer told me he had gone through it, and worse,

and still lived.
"Don't let them beat you out," he spelled with his knuckles. "Don't

let them kill you, for that would suit them. And don't squeal on
the plant."

"But there isn't any plant," I rapped back with the edge of the sole
of my shoe against the grating--I was in the jacket at the time and

so could talk only with my feet. "I don't know anything about the
damned dynamite."

"That's right," Oppenheimer praised. "He's the stuff, ain't he,
Ed?"

Which goes to show what chance I had of convincing Warden Atherton
of my ignorance of the dynamite. His very persistence in the quest

convinced a man like Jake Oppenheimer, who could only admire me for
the fortitude with which I kept a close mouth.

During this first period of the jacket-inquisition I managed to
sleep a great deal. My dreams were remarkable. Of course they were

vivid and real, as most dreams are. What made them remarkable was
their coherence and continuity. Often I addressed bodies of

scientists on abstruse subjects, reading aloud to them carefully
prepared papers on my own researches or on my own deductions from

the researches and experiments of others. When I awakened my voice
would seem still ringing in my ears, while my eyes still could see

typed on the white paper whole sentences and paragraphs that I could
read again and marvel at ere the vision faded. In passing, I call

attention to the fact that at the time I noted that the process of
reasoning employed in these dream speeches was invariably deductive.