Twirling in a mad pirouette, the Picaroon threw back his head and laughed. "From curfew to dawn, there is no law!"
Clapping a hand over the Picaroon's mouth, Comstock snapped, "Shut up! You'll rouse the dead with all that noise!"
A little sobered the Picaroon said, "Now you have my most valued secret, see that you guard it with your lives!" Putting his finger to his lips he added, "Hisssst...."
Pat asked, "What is it?"
"Nothing," the Picaroon said, "I just like to say hisssst...."
Shrugging behind the Picaroon's back, Comstock gestured to Pat to pay no mind to their mad guide. Aloud, he asked, "Do you know your way to 14 Anthony Comstock Road?"
"I know all the ways," the Picaroon said, and again taking the lead, walked with exaggerated steps, on tip toe, as though fearing to wake the sleeping world.
It was a long trip on foot and dawn was breaking as they came in sight of some landmarks that Comstock remembered. If his mental picture of the terrain was correct, the car in which Grundy, Helen and he had made their escape from the Fathers should be downhill from where he and Pat and the Picaroon were now standing.
He conveyed this information to the others and this time he took the lead with Pat behind him and the Picaroon still walking on tip toe bringing up the rear.
As they went downhill Comstock could see his goal. Bowdler's house lay still and quiet, the refuge for which he yearned. But it might just as well have been on the other side of his world for all the good it was as long as the force field surrounded it.