"I obeyed, all in a tremble, and he took and put it in his pocket.
"'My God, Major!' I whispered, 'what are you going to do with him?'
"'Silence, sir!' he said. 'How dare you question your superior officer!'
"And the noise inside grew louder.
"The Governor, he listened to it a moment like music; then he unbolted and flung open the trap, and the creature's face came at it like a wild beast's.
"'Sir,' said the Major to it, 'you can't better understand my system than by experiencing it. What an article for your paper you could write already—almost as pungint a one as that in which you ruined the hopes and prospects of a young cockney poet.'
"The man mouthed at the bars. He was half-mad, I think, in that one minute.
"'Let me out!' he screamed. 'This is a hideous joke! Let me out!'
"'When you are quite quiet—deathly quiet,' said the Major, 'you shall come out. Not before;' and he shut the trap in its face very softly.
"'Come, Johnson, march!' he said, and took the lead, and we walked out of the prison.