“Have you got those disguises?”
“Sure, they’re upstairs in the loft. Want to put ’em on now?”
“We do,” said Melville; “there’s no knowing how soon some of that outfit may cross our trail, and we don’t want to be caught napping.”
“All right, go right ahead up. Jake knows the way,” said Dan, who, although he posed as a livery-stable keeper, was a notorious rascal of Boston’s underworld.
Half an hour after the four worthies had taken their way upstairs, they reappeared again. But how altered! Jake Rook, who was an adept at this sort of thing, had excelled himself at his work.
Melville’s moustache had been shaven off, and he was rigged out like a bloated, broken-down old cab-driver; Sawdon had the semblance of a hanger-on about a livery stable; Jake Rook appeared to be a peddler; and Radcliff was apparently a seedy, down-at-heels foreigner of the emigrant type, with an untidy black beard.
“Great!” exclaimed Dan, as he viewed them; “your own mothers wouldn’t know you, and that’s the truth.”
At this moment there came a loud knocking at the door of the stable, which was closed and locked. Dan darted to a peephole in the front of the place, constructed for the purposes of spying.
“Great Scott, boys!” he exclaimed the next minute, in a low, tense whisper, “it’s them kids you were talking about, with half a dozen policemen. They’re in plain clothes, but I’d know a bull anywhere.”
Instant consternation prevailed among the conspirators. But Jake Rook, who alone remained cool, spoke up quickly.