Chapter Twenty Five.
A Terrible Risk.
“What are you staring at, Cob?”
It was Uncle Jack who spoke, and Uncle Dick had just come up with him, to find me in the yard, looking up at the building.
It was dinner-hour, and all the men had gone but Pannell, who was sitting on a piece of iron out in the yard calmly cutting his bread and meat into squares and then masticating them as if it were so much tilt-hammer work that he had to do by the piece.
“I was thinking, Uncle, suppose they were to set fire to us some night, what should we do?”
“Hah! Yes: not a bad thought,” said Uncle Dick sharply. “Pannell!”
“Hillo!” said that gentleman, rising slowly.
“Finish eating your bread and meat as you go, will you, and buy us twenty-four buckets.”
“Fower-and-twenty boockets,” said Pannell, speaking with his mouth full. “What do yow want wi fower-and-twenty boockets?”