3 A.M.
Hogarth 's pupils were hurriedly examined , his heartbeat tested ; and the freshman frowned , smelling an odour which , in another place , might have been chloroform , but here was pharyngitis ; and he muttered , `` Digitalis , perhaps ... '' From a table Hogarth was swung to a bed by two of those well-behaved convicts who act as hospital-orderlies , and there two hours later had all his wits about him , and a racking headache . His first thought was his boots -- expecting to find them under his stretcher , and himself in flannels ; but he had them still on , and also his work-clothes , humanity to the sick in the first stages not being in the Colmoor code . He spent half an hour in stealthily tearing a square foot from his shirt-tail ; then , weary and sick , went to sleep . When , soon after 3 A.M. his eyes again opened , all was still . He lay in a long room , rather dim , in the midst of a row of stretchers which were shut in by bars containing locks and gates , and on the other side of the room a row of stretchers , shut in by bars . At a table in the middle , on which were bottles , lint , graduated glasses , sat a warder , with outstretched legs and fallen head : near him , standing listless , a convict hospital-orderly , who continually edged nearer the stove ; and , half-way down the room , another . Occasionally there were calls from the sick-beds -- whispered shouts -- apologetic and stealthy , as of men guiltily conscious of the luxury of being ill ; but neither night-warder nor orderlies made undue haste to hear these summonses .