Apples! Well, my word, she was a cool one! I picked up one, polished it on my sleeve, and gave it to her.
"I'm hungry," she said apologetically.
"And plucky, too," I supplemented admiringly. "Most women would be in a weeping state by this time."
"Perhaps I am waiting till it is all over."
"You had better take off your mask." In fact I felt positive that the sight of her exquisite face would act like a tonic upon my nerves.
"I am doing very well with it on. I can at least keep my face clean." She raised the curtain and took a liberal bite of the apple—so nonchalantly that I was forced to smile.
"Here's a box," said I; "let's sit down while we eat. We are safe enough. If any one had heard the racket in the coal-bin, the cellar would have been full of police by this time."
And there we sat, calmly munching the apples, for all the world as if the iron hand of the law wasn't within a thousand miles of us. It was all very amusing.
