Amusement Only

"What do you want here?"

"Three months' hard labour."

The man looked down and saw that the new-comer had gyves upon his wrists. He went to a door at one side, and summoned another warder. The two returned together. This second official took in the situation at a glance.

"Have you come from-?" naming the town from which they in fact had come. Mankell inclined his head. This second official turned his attention to the prostrate constable. "Look in his pockets."

The janitor acted on the suggestion. The order for committal was produced.

"Are you Oliver Mankell?"

Again Mankell inclined his head. With the order in his hand, the official marched him through the side-door by which he had himself appeared. Soon Oliver Mankell was the inmate of a cell. He spent that night in the reception-cells at the gate. In the morning he had a bath, was inducted into prison clothing, and examined by the doctor. He was then taken up to the main building of the prison, and introduced to the governor. The governor was a quiet, gentlemanly man, with a straggling black beard and spectacles-the official to the tips of his fingers. As Mankell happened to be the only fresh arrival, the governor favoured him with a little speech.

"You've placed yourself in an uncomfortable position, Mankell. I hope you'll obey the rules while you're here."

"I intend to act upon the advice tendered me by the magistrate who passed sentence."

The governor looked up. Not only was the voice a musical voice, but the words were not the sort of words generally chosen by the average prisoner.

"What advice was that?"

"He said that I claimed to be a magician. He strongly advised me to prove it during my stay in jail. I intend to act upon the advice he tendered."

The governor looked Mankell steadily in the face. The speaker's bearing conveyed no suggestion of insolent intention. The governor looked down again.

"I advise you to be careful what you do. You may make your position more uncomfortable than it is already. Take the man away."

They took the man away. They introduced him to the wheel. On the treadmill he passed the remainder of the morning. At noon morning tasks were over, and the prisoners were marched into their day-cells to enjoy the meal which, in prison parlance, was called dinner. In accordance with the ordinary routine, the chaplain made his appearance in the round-house to interview those prisoners who had just come in, and those whose sentences would be completed on the morrow. When Mankell had been asked at the gate what his religion was, he had made no answer; so the warder, quite used to ignorance on the part of new arrivals as to all religions, had entered him as a member of the Church of England. As a member of the Church of England he was taken out to interview the chaplain.

The chaplain was a little fussy gentleman, considerably past middle age. Long experience of prisons and prisoners had bred in him a perhaps unconscious habit of regarding criminals as naughty boys-urchins who required a judicious combination of cakes and castigation.

"Well, my lad, I'm sorry to see a man of your appearance here." This was a remark the chaplain made to a good many of his new friends. It was intended to give them the impression that at least the chaplain perceived that they were something out of the ordinary run. Then he dropped his voice to a judicious whisper. "What's it for?"

"For telling the truth."

This reply seemed a little to surprise the chaplain. He settled his spectacles upon his nose.

"For telling the truth!" An idea seemed all at once to strike the chaplain. "Do you mean that you pleaded guilty?" The man was silent. The chaplain referred to a paper he held in his hand. "Eh, I see that here it is written 'false pretences.' Was it a stumer?"

We have seen it mentioned somewhere that "stumer" is slang for a worthless cheque. It was a way with the chaplain to let his charges see that he was at least acquainted with their phraseology. But on this occasion there was no response. The officer in charge of Mankell, who possibly wanted his dinner, put in his oar.

"Telling fortunes, sir."

"Telling fortunes! Oh! Dear me! How sad! You see what telling fortunes brings you to? There will be no difficulty in telling your fortune if you don't take care. I will see you to-morrow morning after chapel."

The chaplain turned away. But his prediction proved to be as false as Mankell's were stated to have been. He did not see him the next morning after chapel, and that for the sufficient reason that on the following morning there was no chapel. And the reasons why there was no chapel were very curious indeed-unprecedented, in fact.

Canterstone Jail was an old-fashioned prison. In it each prisoner had two cells, one for the day and one for the night. The day-cells were on the ground-floor, those for the night were overhead. At six a.m. a bell was rung, and the warders unlocked the night-cells for the occupants to go down to those beneath. That was the rule. That particular morning was an exception to the rule. The bell was rung as usual, and the warders started to unlock, but there the adherence to custom ceased, for the doors of the cells refused to be unlocked.

The night-cells were hermetically sealed by oaken doors of massive thickness, bolted and barred in accordance with the former idea that the security of prisoners should depend rather upon bolts and bars than upon the vigilance of the officers in charge. Each door was let into a twenty-four inch brick-wall, and secured by two ponderous bolts and an enormous lock of the most complicated workmanship. These locks were kept constantly oiled. When the gigantic key was inserted, it turned as easily as the key of a watch-that was the rule. When, therefore, on inserting his key into the lock of the first cell, Warder Slater found that it wouldn't turn at all, he was rather taken aback. "Who's been having a game with this lock?" he asked.

Warder Puffin, who was stationed at the head of the stairs to see that the prisoners passed down in order, at the proper distance from each other, replied to him.

"Anything the matter with the lock? Try the next."

Warder Slater did try the next, but he found that as refractory as the first had been.

"Perhaps you've got the wrong key?" suggested Warder Puffin.

"Got the wrong key!" cried Warder Slater. "Do you think I don't know my own keys when I see them?"

The oddest part of it was that all the locks were the same. Not only in Ward A, but in Wards B, C, D, E, and F-in all the wards, in fact. When this became known, a certain sensation was created, and that on both sides of the unlocked doors. The prisoners were soon conscious that their guardians were unable to release them, and they made a noise. Nothing is so precious to the average prisoner as a grievance; here was a grievance with a vengeance.

The chief warder was a man named Murray. He was short and stout, with a red face, and short, stubbly white hair-his very appearance suggested apoplexy. That suggestion was emphasised when he lost his temper-capable officer though he was, that was more than once in a while. He was in the wheel-shed, awaiting the arrival of the prisoners preparatory to being told off to their various tasks, when, instead of the prisoners, Warder Slater appeared. If Murray was stout, Slater was stouter. He was about five feet eight, and weighed at least 250 pounds. He was wont to amaze those who saw him for the first time-and wondered-by assuring them that he had a brother who was still stouter-compared to whom he was a skeleton, in fact. But he was stout enough. He and the chief warder made a striking pair.

"There's something the matter with the locks of the night-cells, sir. We can't undo the doors."

"Can't undo the doors!" Mr. Murray turned the colour of a boiled beetroot. "What do you mean?"

"It's very queer, sir, but all over the place it's the same. We can't get none of the doors unlocked."

Mr. Murray started off at a good round pace, Slater following hard at his heels. The chief warder tried his hand himself. He tried every lock in the prison; not one of them vouchsafed to budge. Not one, that is, with a single exception. The exception was in Ward B, No. 27. Mr. Murray had tried all the other doors in the ward, beginning with No. 1-tried them all in vain. But when he came to No. 27, the lock turned with the customary ease, and the door was open. Within it was Oliver Mankell, standing decorously at attention, waiting to be let out. Mr. Murray stared at him.

"Hum! there's nothing the matter with this lock, at any rate. You'd better go down."

Oliver Mankell went downstairs-he was the only man in Canterstone jail who did.

"Well, this is a pretty go!" exclaimed Mr. Murray, when he had completed his round. Two or three other warders had accompanied him. He turned on these. "Someone will smart for this-you see if they don't. Keep those men still."

The din was deafening. The prisoners, secure of a grievance, were practising step-dances in their heavy shoes on the stone floors: they made the narrow vaulted corridors ring.

"Silence those men!" shouted Mr. Jarvis, the second warder, who was tall and thin as the chief was short and stout. He might as well have shouted to the wind. Those in the cells just close at hand observed the better part of valour, but those a little distance off paid not the slightest heed. If they were locked in, the officers were locked out.

"I must go and see the governor." Mr. Murray pursed up his lips. "Keep those men still, or I'll know the reason why."

He strode off, leaving his subordinates to obey his orders-if they could, or if they couldn't.

Mr. Paley's house was in the centre of the jail. Paley, by the way, was the governor's name. The governor, when Mr. Murray arrived, was still in bed. He came down to the chief warder in rather primitive disarray.

"Anything the matter, Murray?"

"Yes, sir; there's something very much the matter, indeed."

"What is it?"

"We can't get any of the doors of the night-cells open."

"You can't get-what?"