The governor, like most men of non-intrusive but iron will, who have both temper and feelings perfectly under control, has a very strong influence wherever he goes. It was he who opened and carried on with me, what he politely termed, a "little conversation." "These difficulties," continued he, after referring to the dismissed complaint of my straining the rules of the gaol to their utmost limit, from my "sympathy with criminals," "these unpleasantnesses, Doctor Urquhart, will, I fear, be always occurring. Have you reconsidered the hint I gave to you, some little time ago?" I answered that it was rarely my habit to take hints; I preferred having all things spoken right out. "Such candour is creditable, though not always possible or advisable. I should have been exceedingly glad if you had saved me from what I feel to be my duty, however painful, namely, to repeat my private suggestion publicly." "You mean that I should tender my resignation." "Excuse my saying--and the board agrees with me--that such a step seems desirable, for many reasons." I waited, and then asked for those reasons. "Doctor Urquhart must surely be aware of them." A man is not bound to rush madly into his ruin. I determined to die fighting, at any rate. I said, addressing the board:-- "Gentlemen, I am not aware of having conducted myself in any manner that unfits me for being surgeon to this gaol. Any slight differences between the governor and myself, are mere matters of opinion, which signify little, so long as neither trenches on the other's authority, and both are amenable to the regulations of the establishment. If you have any cause of complaint against me, state it, reprove or dismiss me, it is your right; but no one has a right without just grounds to request me to resign." The governor, even through that handsome, impassive, masked countenance of his, looked annoyed. For an instant his hard manner dropped into the old friendliness, even as when, in the first few weeks after his wife's death, he and I used to sit playing chess together of evenings, with little Lucy between us. "Doctor, why will you misapprehend me? It is for your own sake that I wish, before the matter is opened up further, you should resign your post." After a moment's consideration, I requested him to explain himself more clearly. One of the magistrates here cried out with a laugh:--"Come, come, doctor, no shamming. You are the town's talk." And another suggested that "Brown had better mind his P's and Q's; there were such things as actions for libel." I replied if the gentlemen referred to the scurrilous allegations against me which had appeared in print, they might speak without fear; I had no intention of prosecuting for libel. This silenced them a moment, and then the first magistrate said:--