I cannot say whether or no Professor Panky was really deceived by the sweet effrontery with which my father proffered him the bone. If he was taken in, his answer was dictated simply by a donnish unwillingness to allow any one to be better informed on any subject than he was himself. My father, when I suggested this to him, would not hear of it. “Oh no,” he said; “the man knew well enough that I was lying.” However this may be, the Professor’s manner changed. “You are right,” he said, “I thought they were landrail bones, but was not sure till I had one in my hand. I see, too, that the plucked birds are landrails, but there is little light, and I have not often seen them without their feathers.” “I think,” said my father to me, “that Hanky knew what his friend meant, for he said, ‘Panky, I am very hungry.’” “Oh, Hanky, Hanky,” said the other, modulating his harsh voice till it was quite pleasant. “Don’t corrupt the poor man.” “Panky, drop that; we are not at Bridgeford now; I am very hungry, and I believe half those birds are not quails but landrails.” My father saw he was safe. He said, “Perhaps some of them might prove to be so, sir, under certain circumstances. I am a poor man, sir.” “Come, come,” said Hanky; and he slipped a sum equal to about half-a-crown into my father’s hand. “I do not know what you mean, sir,” said my father, “and if I did, half-a- crown would not be nearly enough.” “Hanky,” said Panky, “you must get this fellow to give you lessons.” CHAPTER IV: MY FATHER OVERHEARS MORE OF HANKY AND PANKY’S CONVERSATION My father, schooled under adversity, knew that it was never well to press advantage too far. He took the equivalent of five shillings for three brace, which was somewhat less than the birds would have been worth when things were as he had known them. Moreover, he consented to take a shilling’s worth of Musical Bank money, which (as he has explained in his book) has no appreciable value outside these banks. He did this because he knew that it would be respectable to be seen carrying a little Musical Bank money, and also because he wished to give some of it to the British Museum, where he knew that this curious coinage was unrepresented. But the coins struck him as being much thinner and smaller than he had remembered them. It was Panky, not Hanky, who had given him the Musical Bank money. Panky was the greater humbug of the two, for he would humbug even himself--a thing, by the way, not very hard to do; and yet he was the less successful humbug, for he could humbug no one who was worth humbugging--not for long. Hanky’s occasional frankness put people off their guard. He was the mere common, superficial, perfunctory Professor, who, being a Professor, would of course profess, but would not lie more than was in the bond; he was log-rolled and log-rolling, but still, in a robust wolfish fashion, human.