After each handful I rubbed my hand off on the back of my shirt and waited an instant for a summons to the desk.
Then the process was repeated with the other hand, and a quart of the saponaceous mush was packed in the right hand pocket.
Shortly after Wirz rose and ordered a guard to take me away and keep me, until he decided what to do with me.

The day was intensely hot, and soon the soap in my pockets and on the back of my shirt began burning like double strength Spanish fly blisters.

There was nothing to do but grin and bear it.

I set my teeth, squatted down under the shade of the parapet of the fort, and stood it silently and sullenly.

For the first time in my life I thoroughly appreciated the story of the Spartan boy, who stole the fox and suffered the animal to tear his bowels out rather than give a sign which would lead to the exposure of his theft.
Between four and five o'clock-after I had endured the thing for five or six hours, a guard came with orders from Wirz that I should be returned to the Stockade.