absurd, yet gay and joyous laughter. It sounded like the cackling of a
goose, Ga-ga-ga! The warden looked at him in astonishment, then knit
his brow sternly. This strange gayety of a man who was to be executed
was an offence to the prison, as well as to the very executioner; it
made them appear absurd. And suddenly, for the briefest instant, it
appeared to the old warden, who had passed all his life in the prison,
and who looked upon its laws as the laws of nature, that the prison
and all the life within it was something like an insane asylum, in
which he, the warden, was the chief lunatic.

"Pshaw! The devil take you!" and he spat aside. "Why are you giggling
here? This is no dramshop!"

"And I don't want to be hanged-gaga-ga!" laughed Yanson.

"Satan!" muttered the inspector, feeling the need of making the sign
of the cross.

This little man, with his small, wizened face-he resembled least of
all the devil- but there was that in his silly giggling which
destroyed the sanctity and the strength of the prison. If he laughed
longer, it seemed to the warden as if the walls might fall asunder,
the grating melt and drop out, as if the warden himself might lead the
prisoners to the gates, bowing and saying: "Take a walk in the city,
gentlemen; or perhaps some of you would like to go to the village?"

"Satan!"

But Yanson had stopped laughing, and was now winking cunningly.