A warrant officer for the Empire, Mandel is sent to replace the magistrate’s position after the magistrate has been charged with treason (consorting with the barbarians). The magistrate describes Mandel as highly affected and self-conscious, and as putting great effort into expressing his authority in order to mask his more boyish and delicate sensibilities. Believing Mandel to hail from people of low social class, the magistrate thinks he’s adopted such heady airs in order to cover up any traces of his less-than-regal upbringing. Mandel presides over the magistrate’s imprisonment while Colonel Joll is at the front, and eventually releases him, finding the cost of imprisoning the magistrate to be no longer a justifiable expenditure.