"cut" to his engine absolutely prohibited. Just there was the
trouble. His first gentle, slumberous breath sounded like a small
boy sliding down the sheet-iron roof of 35. His second resembled a
force of carpenters tearing out the half-grown partitions. His
third--but mere words are an absurdity. At times the noises from
his gorilla-like throat softened down till one merely fancied
himself in the hog-corral of a Chicago stockyards; at others we
prayed that we might at once be transferred there. A thousand
times during the night we were certain he was on the very point of
choking to death, and sat up in bed praying he wouldn't, and
offering our month's salary to charity if he would; and through
all our fatiguing anguish he snorted undisturbedly on. In House 35
he was known as "the Sloth." It was a gentle and kindly title.

There were a few inexperienced inmates who had not yet utterly
given up hope. The long hours of the night were spent in solemn
conference. Pounding on the walls with hammers, chairs, and shoe-
heels was like singing a lullaby. One genius invented a species of
foghorn which proved very effective--in waking up all Empire east
of the tracks, except "the Sloth." Some took to dropping their
heavier and more dispensable possessions over the partition. One
memorable night a fellow-sufferer cast over a young dry-goods box
which, bouncing from the snorer's figure to the floor, caused him
to lose a beat--one; and the feat is still one of the proud
memories of 35. On Sundays when all the rest of the world was up
and shaved and breakfasted and off on the 8:39 of a brilliant,
sunny day to Panama, "the Sloth" would be still imperturbably
snorting and choking in the depths of his cot. And in the evening,
as the train roamed back through the fresh cool jungle dusk and
deposited us at Empire station, and we crossed the wooden bridge