"They're not easy locks to pick, but we'll have a try!"
"Have a try!"
They had a try, but they tried in vain. As it happened, the cell on which they commenced operations was occupied by a gentleman who had had a considerable experience in picking locks--experience which had ended in placing him on the other side that door. He derided the locksmiths through the door.
"Well, you are a couple of keen ones! What, can't pick the lock! Why, there ain't a lock in England I couldn't pick with a bent 'airpin. I only wish you was this side, starving like I am, and I was where you are, it wouldn't be a lock that would keep me from giving you food."
This was not the sort of language Major Hardinge was accustomed to hear from the average prisoner, but the Major probably felt that on this occasion the candid proficient in the art of picking locks had a certain excuse. He addressed the baffled workmen.
"If you can't pick the lock, what can you do? The question is, what is the shortest way of getting inside that cell?"
"Get a watch-saw," cried the gentleman on the other side the door.
"And when you've got your watch-saw?" inquired the Major.
"Saw the whole lock right clean away. Lor' bless me! I only wish I was where you are, I'd show you a thing or two. It's as easy as winking. Here's all us chaps a-starving, all for want of a little hexperience!"
"A saw'll be no good," declared one of the locksmiths. "Neither a watch-saw nor any other kind of saw. How are you going to saw through those iron stanchions? You'll have to burst the door in, that's what it'll have to be."