Again and again that day we were cursed for our knuckle talking by
whatever guard was on. But we could not refrain. The two of the living
dead had become three, and we had so much to say, while the manner of
saying it was exasperatingly slow and I was not so proficient as they at
the knuckle game.

"Wait till Pie-Face comes on to-night," Morrell rapped to me. "He sleeps
most of his watch, and we can talk a streak."

How we did talk that night! Sleep was farthest from our eyes. Pie-Face
Jones was a mean and bitter man, despite his fatness; but we blessed that
fatness because it persuaded to stolen snatches of slumber. Nevertheless
our incessant tapping bothered his sleep and irritated him so that he
reprimanded us repeatedly. And by the other night guards we were roundly
cursed. In the morning all reported much tapping during the night, and
we paid for our little holiday; for, at nine, came Captain Jamie with
several guards to lace us into the torment of the jacket. Until nine the
following morning, for twenty-four straight hours, laced and helpless on
the floor, without food or water, we paid the price for speech.

Oh, our guards were brutes! And under their treatment we had to harden
to brutes in order to live. Hard work makes calloused hands. Hard
guards make hard prisoners. We continued to talk, and, on occasion, to
be jacketed for punishment. Night was the best time, and, when
substitute guards chanced to be on, we often talked through a whole
shift.

Night and day were one with us who lived in the dark. We could sleep any
time, we could knuckle-talk only on occasion. We told one another much