“Gentlemen? There are no gentlemen here. They are the same as we are now,” a convict sitting in the corner brought out gloomily. He had not said a word till then.

“I should like some tea, but I am ashamed to ask; we have our pride!” observed the convict with the protruding lip, looking good-naturedly at us.

“I’ll give you some, if you like,” I said, inviting the convict to have tea, “would you like some?”

“Like it? To be sure I’d like it.”

He came up to the table.

“At home he ate broth out of a shoe, but here he’s learnt to like tea; and wants to drink it like the gentry,” the gloomy convict pronounced.

“Why, does no one drink tea here?” I asked him. But he did not deign to answer me.