"I should think we were all at Niblo's," said a man of slighter build, "and that we were playing Humpty Dumpty. Because a girl flew out of a window, you think a fence opened to take her in. Why should she not go through a door?" and he kicked with his foot upon the heavy sloping cellar-door of the church, which just rose a little from the pavement. It was the doorway which they used there when they took in their supply of coal. The moon fell full on one side of it. To my surprise it was loose and gave way.
"Here is where the girl flew to, and here is where Bully Bigg, the donkey, let her slip out of his fingers. I knew he was a fool, but I did not know he was such a fool," said the Dane (if he were the Dane).
I will not pretend to write down the oaths and foul words which came in between every two of the words I have repeated.
"Fool yourself!" replied the Bully; "and what sort of a fool is the man who comes up a blind alley, looking after a girl that will not kiss him when he bids her?"
"Anyway," put in another of the crew, who had just now lifted the heavy cellar-door, "other people may find it handy to hop down here when the 'beaks' are too near them. It's a handy place to know of, in a dark night, if the dear deacons do choose to keep it open for a poor psalm-singing tramp, who has no chance at the station-house. Here, Lopp, you are the tallest—jump in and tell us what is there"; and at this moment the Dane caught sight of my unfortunate ladder, lying full in the moonlight. I could see him seize it, and run to the doorway with it, with a deep laugh, and some phrase of his own country talk, which I did not understand.
"The deacons are very good," said the savage who had lifted the cellar-door. "They make everything handy for us poor fellows."
And though he had not planted the ladder, he was the first to run down, and called for the rest to follow. The Dane was second, Lopp was third, and "The Bully," as the big rascal seemed to be called by distinction, was the fourth.
I saw him disappear from my view, with a mixture of wonder and terror which I will not describe. I seized my light overcoat, which always hung in the passage. I flung open my sliding-door, and shut it again behind me. I looked into the black of the cellar to see the reflections from their distant lanterns, and, without a sound, I drew up my ladder. Then I ran to the head of the alley, and sounded my rattle as I would have sounded the trumpet for a charge in battle. The officers joined me in one moment.
"I am the man who spoke to the captain about these rowdies. Four of them are in the cellar of the church yonder now."
"Do you know who?"