"Ready for anything short of murder."
"All right, then, there's no murder in the case, only a nice little game of lock-picking and so on. No backing out now, and beforehand we must all take this oath: that if any one of us is nabbed, and should by any chance suffer the penalty of the law, he shall not implicate any of the others."
"That's fair," said Quirk; "all stand the same chance."
The oath was administered, and each one laid his hand upon the Holy Book, saying: "I swear," "I swear," "I swear."
"Now," said Clinton, "what I propose is this: that we just walk into your boss's store this night, and walk out of
it with goods enough to make us rich men. We can do it easy as guns."
Arthur turned pale and remained silent.
"What's the matter, boy," said Clinton, laughing, "you ain't going to play chickenheart, are you?"
"No," said Arthur, ashamed to confess his dislike to the plan, "but why can't you take some other store?"
"Because we havn't the men drugged in any other store, and, in case of detection, we're safer there than any where else."