But when he saw the Picaroon was busy searching for male clothes he turned away from the delectable sight of Pat's n..e body and took the clothes that the Picaroon gave him. A floppy hat had a big enough brim so that in the dark Comstock's face would be hidden. A tight pair of trousers and a too big jacket of a different color than the things he had been wearing would have to suffice as a disguise. All Comstock could do really, was hope and pray that they would be able to get, with the Picaroon's aid, near enough to Bowdler's house so that while the Picaroon was busy trying to understand the mechanics of the abandoned car, he and Pat could make a run for it through the force field at the proper time.
The trip through the darkened city was a revelation to both Pat and Comstock. In Comstock's earlier, law-abiding incarnation, there had never been a night that found him in bed later than the curfew at ten. To find that the streets were completely deserted at two, or three o'clock in the morning came as no surprise, since he knew that all lawful souls would, of course, be asleep at that time.
But he had not been an alcoholic for a long enough period to find out that the bars stayed open long after midnight. The only people that there was the slightest chance of trouble with, were the roisterers who staggered out of the saloons from time to time, and here the danger was slight, for as soon as an inebriate hove into view the Picaroon would wink mightily, link arms with Pat on one side and with Comstock on the other and the trio would mimic drunkenness and sing bawdy songs till the real drunks were gone.
"What," Comstock asked, "are the chances of bumping into an R.A.?"
"Aha!" The Picaroon placed his long forefinger next to his nose. "You are attempting to tear aside the veil that hides the Picaroon's methods!"
"Fiddle faddle," Pat said nastily, "answer him!"
Coming to a halt on a silent street corner under a lamp post that cast a spotlight down around his piratical figure, the Picaroon said, "At night, after curfew, when all law-abiding citizens sleep...." He lowered his voice to a shadow of a whisper forcing Pat and Comstock to place their ears near his mouth, "you realize, don't you, both of you, that I am giving away my most cherished secret, the modus operandi that allows me to operate and so flout the law?"
They nodded.
"Then let it be known, but just to us, that I have found when all the other law-abiding citizens sleep, why, so do the R.A.'s."