“Patsy, you’re the limit. But, as you’re here, keep quiet, and do what I tell you.”
“I’ll do anything you tell me, unless you say I’m to get out,” replied Patsy. “That’s where I’m liable to disobey orders, if it gets me a licking.”
“Stay here on guard,” returned Chick quickly. “I’m going to see whether those fellows in there suspect we are around.”
“I’d bet a pumpkin to a peanut they don’t,” rejoined Patsy confidently.
Without replying Chick opened a closet in a corner of the room, near the window, and through which shone enough of the glow of the street lamp to show him where it was.
Going inside, after a final warning to Patsy to keep his eyes open, he closed the door, to exclude even the faint, murky glimmer from the window, and felt against the wall at the back.
He had been told so clearly what he would find there, that he had his fingers on a certain wad of paper on the wall almost at once.
This wad of paper was stuffed into a very small hole in the wall—which, between the two houses, was only lath and plaster on the outside, with the thickness of a single brick between, before it again became lath and plaster in the other house.
To make the peephole properly, Patsy had selected a spot where the bricks joined, with rotting mortar between them. The house was very old, and mortar wears out in the course of years. He had used a long file, as well as a knife, and had cut a hole between the brick and the plastering on the other side, which, while small, was still large enough to suit the purpose of Chick.
“By Jupiter!” was Chick’s breathless ejaculation, as he obtained a good focus on the interior of the other room. “Here’s evidence—all we want!”