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 hand and threw it on the ground, while he motioned the hangman to proceed.

"The wire was from the aforementioned fakir and it read: 'Please wire (prepaid) whether hanging has come off according to program—Jack.' But that's neither here nor there. The point is that the man about to be put to the worst use one can possibly put a living person to, was allowed to think for several minutes that the Home Secretary had commuted his sentence of death, that he, the doomed one, was going to live after all. I am told they actually stripped the cap off his face, so he could breathe freely.

"Had that chap got used to hanging, or the hanging idea, by the time when the cord was once more drawn tight? Did he think with the French wag (or was it an Englishman?) 'hang me, your Highness? No, that would be the death of me.'

"So in our case; no, a thousand times no, for in the interval the poor soul had got used to living once more, and a thousand-and-one murderous thoughts were in his heart while he was being swung off into eternity." 117