Now, look here.--You seems a civil sort of chap; and civil gets
as civil gives with me. Only don't you talk no politics. They ain't no good
to nobody, except the big 'uns, wot gets their living thereby; and I should
think you'd had dose enough on 'em to last for a month of Sundays. So just
get yourself tidy, there's a lad, and come along with me to chapel."
I obeyed him, in that and other things; and I never received from him, or,
indeed, from any one else there, aught but kindness. I have no complaint to
make--but prison is prison. As for talking politics, I never, during those
three years, exchanged as many sentences with any of my fellow-prisoners.
What had I to say to them? Poachers and petty thieves--the scum of misery,
ignorance, and rascality throughout the country. If my heart yearned toward
them at times, it was generally shut close by the exclusive pride of
superior intellect and knowledge. I considered it, as it was, a degradation
to be classed with such; never asking myself how far I had brought that
degradation on myself; and I loved to show my sense of injustice by
walking, moody and silent, up and down a lonely corner of the yard; and at
last contrived, under the plea of ill health (and, truly, I never was ten
minutes without coughing), to confine myself entirely to my cell, and
escape altogether the company of a class whom I despised, almost hated, as
my betrayers, before whom I had cast away my pearls--questionable though
they were according to Mackaye.
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