I noticed that my companion was observing our fellow-visitors with a kind of horrified curiosity, which she strove, however, and not unsuccessfully, to conceal; and certainly the appearance of the majority furnished eloquent testimony to the failure of crime as a means of worldly advancement.

Their present position was productive of very varied emotions; some were silent and evidently stricken with grief; a larger number were voluble and excited, while a considerable proportion were quite cheerful and even inclined to be facetious.
At length the great iron gate was unlocked and our party taken in charge by a warder, who conducted us to that part of the building known as "the wing"; and, in the course of our progress, I could not help observing the profound impression made upon my companion by the circumstance that every door had to be unlocked to admit us and was locked again as soon as we had passed through.
"It seems to me," I said, as we neared our destination, "that you had better let me see Reuben first; I have not much to say to him and shall not keep you waiting long." "Why do you think so ?" she asked, with a shade of suspicion.
"Well," I answered, "I think you may be a little upset by the interview, and I should like to see you into your cab as soon as possible afterwards." "Yes," she said; "perhaps you are right, and it is kind of you to be so thoughtful on my account." A minute later, accordingly, I found myself shut into a narrow box, like one of those which considerate pawnbrokers provide for their more diffident clients, and in a similar, but more intense, degree, pervaded by a subtle odour of uncleanness.

The woodwork was polished to an unctuous smoothness by the friction of numberless dirty hands and soiled garments, and the general appearance--taken in at a glance as I entered--was such as to cause me to thrust my hands into my pockets and studiously avoid contact with any part of the structure but the floor.
The end of the box opposite the door was closed in by a strong grating of wire--excepting the lower three feet, which was of wood--and looking through this, I perceived, behind a second grating, Reuben Hornby, standing in a similar attitude to my own.

He was dressed in his usual clothes and with his customary neatness, but his face was unshaven and he wore, suspended from a button-hole, a circular label bearing the characters "B.31"; and these two changes in his exterior carried with them a suggestiveness as subtle as it was unpleasant, making me more than ever regretful that Miss Gibson had insisted on coming.
"It is exceedingly good of you, Dr.Jervis, to come and see me," he said heartily, making himself heard quite easily, to my surprise, above the hubbub of the adjoining boxes; "but I didn't expect you here.

I was told I could see my legal advisers in the solicitor's box." "So you could," I answered.