And surely no more tormented mind than the mind of Peter Gudge had
ever been put in that black hole. It was the more terrible, because
so utterly undeserved, so preposterous. For such a thing to happen
to him, Peter Gudge, of all people--who took such pains to avoid
discomfort in life, who was always ready to oblige anybody, to do
anything he was told to do, so as to have'an easy time, a
sufficiency of food, and a warm corner to crawl into! What could
have persuaded fate to pick him for the victim of this cruel prank;
to put him into this position, where he could not avoid suffering,
no matter what he did? They wanted him to tell something, and Peter
would have been perfectly willing to tell anything--but how could he
tell it when he did not know it?

The more Peter thought about it, the more outraged he became. It was
monstrous! He sat up and glared into the black darkness. He talked
to himself, he talked to the world outside, to the universe which
had forgotten his existence. He stormed, he wept. He got on his feet
and flung himself about the cell, which was six feet square, and
barely tall enough for him to stand erect. He pounded on the door
with his one hand which Guffey had not lamed, he kicked, and he
shouted. But there was no answer, and so far as he could tell, there
was no one to hear.

When he had exhausted himself, he sank down, and fell into a haunted
sleep; and then he wakened again, to a reality worse than any
nightmare. That awful man was coming after him again! He was going
to torture him, to make him tell what he did not know! All the ogres
and all the demons that had ever been invented to frighten the
imagination of children were as nothing compared to the image of the
man called Guffey, as Peter thought of him.