"But the coal, won't it rattle?" asked Micky apprehensively, as he drew near the window in readiness to follow Slade down. "No," grinned the little tout. "They don't use this bin no more, but they used to. You'll know when you wash up afterwards. Well, come on, and be quiet." He disappeared. Micky bent to follow him. Gingerly insinuating himself backward through the window, his legs were grasped from below and Slade piloted him easily to the floor. "Good!" breathed the guide. "Now come along, and just shuffle, or you'll be falling over things. I'll keep you in the open. The cellar's full of things." Manifestly Slade had been there before. The obedient Micky "shuffled" cautiously along and the two proceeded without mishap to a flight of stairs, which they ascended cautiously. It was pitch dark. In Micky's strained ears the scuttling of a rat, across the floor beneath them, sounded unnaturally loud. "Wait a minute," whispered Slade, as they gained the top. "Sometimes this door is locked and sometimes it ain't. If it is, I've got a key." It was not, and the eavesdroppers stepped softly out into the big wareroom. Here showed the dim outlines of innumerable casks and cases, for the radiance of some distant electric lights struggled through the small, old-fashioned windows. A subdued sound of voices came from the office at the upper end of the room. Micky turned involuntarily in that direction. "Wait a minute," whispered Slade, and tiptoed back toward the rear, O'Byrn following. Slade bent over a small cask, duly spigoted and with a couple of small glasses setting near it. "All the comforts of home," he grinned. He drew a couple of generous draughts and held one of the glasses toward Micky. "I know where they keep everything," he whispered, with a leer. The fiery aroma was in Micky's nostrils. He hesitated, but drew back. "I guess not--" he began doubtfully. "Take it, man," urged Slade. "A little whisky won't hurt you. Besides, it's a joke. Here's hopin' worse luck to Shaughnessy in his own stuff." Micky grinned, faltered a moment, and then lightly touched glasses with Slade and downed the liquor. "Tastes like another," whispered Slade, and proceeded to fill up the glasses again. Micky drank without further protest. The pleasant glow at his stomach infused itself into his veins, mounted benignly toward his brain. Always abnormally quick to respond to the spur of stimulants, he was conscious almost instantly of added zest for the adventure. "Come on and be mighty quiet," murmured Slade, and the pair made their way on tiptoe toward the office. Slade approached the door, the upper part of which enclosed a wide glass, behind which hung a screening yellow shade. There was a narrow space below it, however, through which a view of the interior could be obtained, the shade being a little too short to quite reach the length of the glass. Through an open transom overhead the speech of those inside was clearly audible.