Bedtime at the House of Refuge was quite an affair. Wherever there might be a squad of boys, in any part of the buildings or grounds, at the tap of the drum, they were expected to “fall in,” like soldiers, and march toward the dormitory. Each detachment was sure to have its own officer, a boy promoted, for good behavior and trustworthiness, to be corporal, sergeant, or lieutenant.

The dormitory itself was a remarkable sleeping place. It contained a separate room for each boy, but the rooms were not arranged like those of a hotel or a dwelling. There was one immense room, with plenty of windows for daylight and plenty of burners for gaslight. All around the sides of this room ran a broad, empty space, or passage-way, and inside of this, up and down the middle, had been constructed two tiers, one above another, of little bedrooms. Each tier was composed of two rows of rooms, set back to back with their faces toward the outer windows. The face or front of each room was made of slender, upright steel bars, not much more than two inches apart, and each room had a door, made in the same way, shutting with a strong, spring lock. Of course, each room was small and the beds were only wide enough for one boy, but they were very clean and comfortable. There was plenty of light when light was needed; plenty of air, always; and then perfect silence to sleep soundly in was secured by the rule which forbade talking or any kind of skylarking in the dormitory.

Watchmen patrolling around the upper or lower tier of cells, or rooms, could at any time see the entire inside of each, as they walked by. The outer doors of the dormitory closed with strong and intricate locks, of a peculiar pattern. Beyond these were other doors, with watchmen, and beyond all was the open parade-ground inclosure and its high stone wall. Beyond this was the chilling, rushing, impassable tide of the deep and pitiless East River. No boy could hope to get out from one of those sleeping cells and into the city,—into liberty and the world until the appointed time should come for him.

The dormitory was as still as still could be, that night, when Jim lay upon his bed and thought of it all, and he grew bitter at heart with the seeming impossibility of even getting a chance to try Whether or not he could climb the outer wall.

“I’m about the best climber on the training ship, when they send us into the rigging,” he said to himself. “I could go up on a rope or anything. If I could have some of the other fellows with me! Some things I guess I couldn’t do alone. I don’t want any but plucky fellows and good climbers. I don’t belong here. I never did it and I’ve been here long enough. I’m going to get out, if I can.—There, he’s just gone by.”

That meant the passage of a watchman, on his patrol, and Jim obeyed a strong, angry impulse, to jump out of bed and stare after him through the grated door of his cage.

“It’s just like what they put wild animals in, in a menagerie,” he thought, fiercely, as his fingers griped the slim, but strong steel rods.

O!—How he wanted to break out! He drew back, a moment, and then he threw himself, with all his might, against the grating.

He did not care if it hurt him. He was so sore inside that it almost felt good to be pained a little, outside.

Click!

“What was that?—What?—The door is open?—What have I done?—I couldn’t have broken it!”

That was so. Every rod in the grating near him and in the door, was perfectly sound and whole, and yet,—he could hardly believe his eyes,—the door of his cage was now standing ajar, as if inviting him to push it open wider and walk out into the roomy corridor. He did so, but it was very much as if it were all a dream.

Jim’s first feeling was a strong sense of exhilaration, for one of the barriers he had been thinking of had unexpectedly given way. It was such a strong barrier, too, with its steel gratings and its lock. He turned and stared at his open door and empty bedroom and he came near exclaiming aloud:

“How did it happen?”

He knew the door had been shut as carefully as usual by the officer who had been in charge of the boys when they marched into the dormitory.

He examined the look.

It was a very pretty, very perfect lock, but he saw that its strong, brass tongue, that played back and forth on its spring when a key worked it, could also be pushed back by his finger, pressing on its end. Then he almost shut the door and could see that the brass tongue was short and would only go under its catch, on the upright at the side, about half an inch or so.

“That’s it!” exclaimed Jim. “I can see, now. When I pushed so hard, I bent the grating, for those light steel bars are springy. They sprung out so far that they pulled out that tongue beyond the catch and so the door slipped open. I can do it again,—Why,—I can get out into the corridor as often as I want to, but I mustn’t let anybody know how it’s done. Not even the other fellows.—I’ll look at their locks.”

It seemed to him as if his very breathing could be heard by somebody, and so he hardly breathed as he stepped softly along to the next door. The gas-jet near him had been turned low and the light was dim, but he could see that the boy in that cell was sleeping soundly, after his hard work in one of the shops and his long drill-marching.

“He isn’t one of the fellows I want,” thought Jim. “He can’t climb worth a cent and he hollers when he’s hurt.”

That would never do, for Jim was beginning to feel like a captain, hunting up recruits for some difficult and almost desperate enterprise. Nevertheless, he tried the lock of that boy’s door.

“Yes,” he said to himself, “they are all alike. I can get my finger in over the end of the catch-bolt and push it back.—There, I’ve opened that door, but I’ll shut it again. Guess I’ll go back to bed, too, before anybody comes to catch me. I know I can open the doors, but what good’ll that do? I’ve got to think about it.”

The Silent Printing Office.

Silently, with his heart beating hard and his breath coming short, Jim slipped back to his own door, and through it, and pulled it shut behind him. He made no noise in doing so,—only a slight click as the bolt sprang into the hasp,—but he did not feel safe until the bedclothes were over him and he could seem to be asleep. Not many minutes passed before he heard the feet of another watchman, or it may have been the same man,—going along the corridor.

“I’d have been caught,” he thought. “I must look out for that.”

During all those minutes, and long afterward, he lay and thought of locks, locks, locks, on all the doors he knew of in that House of Refuge. He made up his mind to examine them, every chance he could get, and he thought of all sorts of impossible ways of opening them.

It was more and more like a dream until his eyes closed and he was asleep, and he slipped at once into a real dream of having passed all the locked doors, only to find himself standing in front of a stone wall twenty feet high.

Away over in one of the northern wards of the city of New York, Rod Nelson, as sound asleep as Jim, was also dreaming and he too had a stone wall to dream of. He was not trying to climb it himself, however, for he was only looking on while his bearded friend Billy walked up the side of that wall into the avenue, remarking, triumphantly:

“Ba-a-a-beh!”

When morning came, the usual round of activities began, everywhere. The boys in the House of Refuge dormitory dressed themselves in their rooms. Then, as the Superintendent’s assistant came and let them out, they all marched away to breakfast. Jim went with the rest, but he gave a keen, inquiring side-glance, at the lock of every door they passed. He thought he saw something worth remembering in the lock of the great, outer door of the dormitory itself.

“He only turned his key in it once,” he said to himself. “I’ve seen them turn it away around three times. What does that mean? I don’t know much about locks. They say these are the best and safest kind, though.”