The police had got the crowds driven back by now, and had ropes
across the street to hold them, and inside the roped space were
several ambulances and a couple of patrol-wagons. Peter was shoved
into one of these latter, and a policeman sat by his side, and the
bell clanged, and the patrol-wagon forced its way slowly thru the
struggling crowd. Half an hour later they arrived at the huge stone
jail, and Peter was marched inside. There were no formalities, they
did not enter Peter on the books, or take his name or his finger
prints; some higher power had spoken, and Peter's fate was already
determined. He was taken into an elevator, and down into a basement,
and then down a flight of stone steps into a deeper basement, and
there was an iron door with a tiny slit an inch wide and six inches
long near the top. This was the "hole," and the door was opened and
Peter shoved inside into utter darkness. The door banged, and the
bolts rattled; and then silence. Peter sank upon a cold stone floor,
a bundle of abject and hideous misery.

These events had happened with such terrifying rapidity that Peter
Gudge had hardly time to keep track of them. But now he had plenty
of time, he had nothing but time. He could think the whole thing
out, and realize the ghastly trick which fate had played upon him.
He lay there, and time passed; he had no way of measuring it, no
idea whether it was hours or days. It was cold and clammy in the
stone cell; they called it the "cooler," and used it to reduce the
temperature of the violent and intractable. It was a trouble-saving
device; they just left the man there and forgot him, and his own
tormented mind did the rest.