‘All right!’ said he, looking hastily about the room. ‘Hey! but what’s all this noise?’
‘It’s a horrible night; all hell seems abroad,’ said Craig. ‘But come; get ready, and let’s be off.’
‘Will we want any of them?’ asked Jones, pointing to an upper shelf in the closet, on which was lying a number of uncouth-looking instruments, the nature of which was best known to themselves.
‘Take the small crow; we may want that, but nothing more.’
‘The bag, too?’ inquired Bill.
‘No; it’s a girl we’ve to steal; d—n it, I wish it wasn’t!’
While he was speaking, he had thrust his arms into a shaggy great-coat, and was tying a thick woollen wrapper over his mouth, so that the last remark was nearly lost in it. He then put on an oil-skin cap, not unlike what is called by sailors a ‘sou’-wester,’ and stood watching the proceedings of his comrade, which were by no means as expeditious as his own; for that gentleman proceeded very leisurely to encase his feet in a pair of thick woollen stockings, and a pair of shoes more capable of resisting the wet than those which he then wore. After this, he put an oil-cloth jacket over his other one, and surmounted the whole by a coat similar to that worn by Craig.
‘One would suppose you was a baby, from your tenderness to yourself,’ said Craig, impatiently. ‘You ain’t sugar, are you? Do you expect the rain to melt you?’
‘I’m a sweet fellow, I know that,’ replied the other, carefully buttoning his coat to the chin. ‘I may be sugar for all I know, shouldn’t be surprised if I was. I’ve been told so afore this; let me tell you that, my old feller. You ain’t in kidney to-night. Take another pull at little Job,’ said he, handing him the bottle, ‘and we’ll be off.’
Whatever Craig’s contempt of the rain might be, it did not seem to extend to other liquids; for he took the bottle, and applying it to his lips, did not remove it until the bottom of it was not a little inclined toward the ceiling; perhaps its elevation might even have increased, had not Jones reminded him that it being late at night, the vessel could not be replenished, and that there was a ‘small child’ to be helped after him, who hated above all things sucking at the neck of a dry bottle.