"We don't want any of your insolence, my man! Answer the governor's question if you don't want to be severely punished. Do you know who has been playing hanky-panky with the cells?" "Spirits of the air." As he said this Mankell inclined his head and looked at the Major with laughter in his eyes. "Spirits of the air! What the devil do you mean by spirits of the air?" "Ah! what do I mean? To tell _you_ that," laying a stress upon the pronoun, "would take a year." "The fellow's an insolent scoundrel," spluttered the Major. "Come, Mankell, that won't do," struck in Mr. Paley. "Do I understand you to say that you do know something about the matter?" "Know!" The man drew himself up, laying the index finger of his right hand upon the table with a curiously impressive air. "What is there that I do not know?" "I see. You still pretend, then, to the possession of magic powers?" "Pretend!" Mankell laughed. He stretched out his hands in front of him with what seemed to be his favourite gesture, and laughed--in the face of the authorities. "Suppose you give us an example of your powers?" The suggestion came from the doctor. The Major exploded. "Don't talk stuff and nonsense! Give the man three days' bread and water. That is what he wants." "You do not believe in magic, then?" Mankell turned to the Major with his laughing eyes. "What's it matter to you what I believe? You may take my word for it that I don't believe in impudent mountebanks like you." The only reply Mankell gave was to raise his hand--if that might be called a reply--in the way we sometimes do when we call for silence, and there was silence in the room. All eyes were fixed upon the prisoner. He looked each in turn steadily in the face. Then, still serenely smiling, he gently murmured, "If you please." There still was silence, but only for a moment. It was broken by Warder Slater. That usually decorous officer tilted his cap to the back of his head, and thrust his hands into his breeches pockets--hardly the regulation attitude in the presence of superiors. "I should blooming well like to know what this means! 'Ere have I been in this 'ere jail eleven years, and I've never been accused before of letting men out of their night-cells, let alone their beds and bedding, and I don't like it, so I tell you straight." The chief warder turned with automatic suddenness towards the unexpectedly and unusually plain-spoken officer. "Slater, you're a fool!" "I'm not the only one in the place! There's more fools here besides me, and some of them bigger ones as well!" While these compliments were being exchanged, the higher officials sat mutely looking on. When the chief warder seemed at a loss for an answer, the chaplain volunteered a remark. He addressed himself to Warder Slater. "It's my opinion that the governor's a bigger fool than you are, and that the inspector's a still bigger fool than he is."