“Yes, sir, or else chancing it, and that last aren’t pleasant. I think we ought to say, ‘Look here, my fine fellow, two can play at that game o’ yours,’ and get a tin o’ powder, put a bit o’ touch paper through the neck, set light to it, and chuck it down the stairs and blow him to smithereens first.”
“And explode the magazine ourselves if there is one?” cried Carey.
“Well, I ham blessed!” cried Bostock. “I never thought o’ that! Anyone would think I was an Irishman.”
“If I’m to take the lead now, Bob, I won’t have any talk of murder like that.”
“But it aren’t murder, sir; it’s on’y fair fight; tit for him before it’s tat for us. Not as we need argufy, because it wouldn’t be safe to try that game. Oughtn’t we to take to the boat, sir?”
“How can we, Bob?” cried Carey, angrily. “You wouldn’t go and leave the doctor?”
“Nay, sir, that I wouldn’t. I shouldn’t call a chap a man who’d go and do a thing like that. We should take him with us.”
“Hoist him with ropes through that broken skylight! Why, it would kill him.”
“Well, Jackum and me we’d carry him out o’ the s’loon door, sir. We’d be werry careful.”
“Pish! You know that the old ruffian commands the staircase, and he shot both Jackum and me when we were there. He’d riddle you both with bullets, and perhaps quite kill Doctor Kingsmead.”