"Tell me what you mean, Tim."
"Will you join us?"
"Tell me about it, first."
"And let you blow the whole thing?"
"I won't say a word."
"Will you promise not to say anything?"
"Yes."
"Will you swear it?"
Tim had read a great many "yellow-covered" books in his time, in which tall buccaneers with long beards and bloodshot eyes required their victims to "swear," and he seemed to attach some importance to the ceremony. Charles "swore," though with considerable reluctance, not to reveal the secret, when it should be imparted to him.
"You must join our society, now."