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slice of the sole of the sandal was missing and the braided rope was frayed.
    “They even tried to eat me! I really thought I’d leave my hide in that devil’s hellhole!”
    Hal stared at the rope-soled sandal and nodded.
    “Right,” he said. “I see… You’d think we’d been transported back a century… Cells full of rats! Now isn’t that something? And here we are, in the middle of the twentieth century!”
    “Oh, you and your centuries,” said Frank.
    “It’s the same with the way the screws beat us up… I’m not kidding!”
    “Get away! There have always been men who beat up other men and there always will be… Anyway, seeing screws beat up prisoners is no worse than seeing prisoners trying to brain each other at every opportunity!”
    Hal did not respond.
    “What?”
    “Don’t you think so?” persisted Frank.
    “Sure,” said Hal. “That’s what I think. And I even wonder…”
    “…what I think about you, right?… Maybe I’ve got you all wrong…”
    Frank watched the slow progress of a cockroach over the wall. It scuttled across a bare patch at high speed. Then suddenly it swooped down onto Dumbo’s mattress.
    “That’s something else that I’m wondering,” Frank admitted. “We got this idea into our heads from day one… And now it’s grown into some sort of disease that’s spreading and eating us up!”
    He knelt down next to Hal’s cot and asked in a crushed voice:
    “Tell me, Hal: you’re not a cop, are you?”
    “Of course not,” said Hal. “Because the cop here is you!”
    Frank whined: “Not again! You just said…”
    “Fair enough… I’m sorry.”
    “Even if I was one…” stammered Frank. “Let’s have this out, Hal… Even if I was a cop… Even if I was… maybe we could still get on, since we have to put up with the same hardships and the same humiliations.”
    “You’re right,” agreed Hal. “Listen, let’s go through the motions: let’s shake hands!”
    They looked each other in the eye for some time. They weren’t sure, still fighting with a last glimmer of hate and also against the fear of looking ridiculous. Then their fingers touched and they shook hands.
    “Even if you are a cop, Hal,” muttered Frank.
    “Even if you’re one,” sighed Hal.

6
    The Bull was the first to notice that an alteration had come about in the relations between the two men. He was a limited, rough sort of man, but he was streetwise, and that made up for what he lacked in intelligence. Fifteen years of service in a prison had taught him the rudiments of psychology, which enabled him to follow the changing states of mind of his “customers”.
    “Hey, you two!” he exclaimed on the day following the “declaration of peace” signed by Hal and Frank. “You’re both behaving as if you’re as pally as pigs in muck. Only goes to show that my method works! Rules are like music: you apply the first with a rod and strike up the second with a baton!”
    The most unpleasant thing about this man was the soapy laugh which punctuated his witticisms. It stung, it sidled into you like a woodlouse and defiled something you couldn’t put a name to.
    “Only a fortnight now before the execution…” the fat man said, as if he were talking to himself. “Anyway, it’ll make a nice change… And I’ll tell you the best bit: the formal rites will be taking place on the same day as the local fete and gala in town. On our programme: Losing your Head… Short Back and Sides… The Flashing Blade… Parade with Band… Merry-go-round and Grand Ball. Have you noticed how balls on posters are always ‘grand’?”
    He laughed more uproariously than usual. It was a laugh which started in his belly and climbed up his entire body in concentric quakings.
    He winked.
    “Charlie Chop!…” he guffawed. “A real treat for the tender-hearted… Some invention, eh? And such drama!”
    He left abruptly as he always did. He would talk and talk and then suddenly drop the subject and cancel