"Oh! nonsense," answered the Resurrection Man: "he is some quiet chap that doesn't like to smoke and talk at the same time."
"But don't it seem as how he'd throwed a damp on the whole party?" continued the Cracksman, in the same subdued tone.
"Do you take me for a child that's frightened at a shadow?" said the Resurrection Man savagely. "I suppose you're afraid that this young Holford will play us false. Why—what could he do to us? Anything he revealed would only implicate himself. He knows nothing about our games up by the Bird-cage Walk there."
"I forgot that;—no more he doesn't," cried the Cracksman. "There's nobody can do us any harm, that I know on."
"One—and one only," answered the Resurrection Man, sinking his already subdued tone to the lowest possible whisper,—"one only, I say, can injure us; and he will not dare to do it!"
"Who the devil do you mean?" demanded the Cracksman.
"I mean the only man that ever escaped out of the crib up by the walk after he had received a blow from my stick," answered the Resurrection Man.
"You don't mean to say, Tony," whispered the Cracksman, his countenance giving the most unequivocal signs of alarm, "that there's a breathing soul which ever went in the door of that crib an intended wictim, and come out alive agin!"
"Never do you mind now. We shall make all the people stare at us if we go on whispering in this way. Supposing any one did mean to nose upon us haven't we got our barkers in our pocket?"
"Ah! Tony," said the Cracksman, in whose mind these words of his companion seemed to arouse a sudden and most disagreeable idea,—"talking about nosing makes me remember someot that I was told a few days ago up in Rat's Castle in the Rookery."