“The service we ask of you, gentlemen, is just this,” rejoined Guert, with a coolness that, when I came to reflect on the events of that night, has always struck me as singularly astonishing. “Our supper, and an excellent one it is, is close at hand, as I have said. Nothing will be easier than to get it on our own table, in the next room, could we only manage to call old Doortje off duty, and detain her for five minutes at the area gate of her house. She knows every one of _us_, and would smell a rat in a minute, did _we_ show ourselves; but Mr. Worden and Mr. Littlepage, here, might amuse her for the necessary time, without any trouble. She is remarkably fond of Dominies, and would not be able to trace _you_ back to this house, leaving us to eat the supper in peace. After _t'at_, no one cares for the rest.” “I'll do it!--I'll do it!” cried Mr. Worden, hurrying into the passage, in quest of his hat and cloak. “It is no more than just that you should have your own, and the supper will be either eaten, or overdone, should we go for constables.” “No fear of constables, Mr. Worden, we never employ them in our poultry wars. All we, who will get the supper back again, can expect, will be merely a little hot water, or a skirmish with our friends.” The details of the movement were now intelligibly and clearly settled. Guert was to head a party provided with large clothes-baskets, who were to enter the kitchen, during Doortje's absence, and abstract the dishes, which could not yet be served, as all in Albany, of a certain class, sat down to supper at nine precisely. As for Doortje, a negro who was in the house, in waiting on one of the guests, his master, would manage to get her out to the area gate, the house having a cellar kitchen, where it would depend on Mr. Worden to detain her, three or four minutes. To my surprise, the parson entered on the execution of the wild scheme with boyish eagerness, affirming that he could keep the woman half an hour, if it were necessary, by delivering her a lecture on the importance of observing the eighth commandment. As soon as the preliminaries were thus arranged, the two parties proceeded on their respective duties, the hour admonishing us of the necessity of losing no time unnecessarily.