Even a man of shrewd intelligence like Mr. Nihil could not fail to be occasionally taken in. On one or two points he was especially vulnerable. Signs of repentance, real or feigned, won from him at once an earnest sympathy which not seldom proved to be cruelly misplaced. There was also a certain simplicity about him, and want of experience, that sometimes made him the dupe of his subordinates when they tried to curry favour by exaggerating the sufferings of the prisoners. One day when he was _en route_ to the dark cells, intending to pardon a culprit therein confined, the taskmaster who accompanied him voluntarily observed, “You are quite right to release him, sir. His legs would get affected, I am afraid, if he were left there any time, like all the rest.” “What do you mean by that?” asked the governor at once. “Explain.” “I mean, sir, that whenever a prisoner is kept any length of time in the dark, his loins are always affected. It may be seen in their walk. Take the case of Welsh. Welsh is quite crippled from being so much in the dark.” “Do they never recover it?” “Never.” Mr. Nihil was naturally much struck with this observation, and gave it credence, thinking the officer’s opinion worth attention, as he was particularly shrewd and intelligent. But on consulting the medical man of the establishment, he found the statement quite without foundation. Nothing of the kind ever happened; there was nothing the matter with Welsh, and never had been. It was all pure nonsense.