‘You know me, and that it is not likely I should send you on a profitless expedition; but there are a few little arrangements to make before we start.’ ‘Name them.’ ‘I will. They relate, in the first place, to who is to have the command of these little expeditions?’ ‘Oh, you, of course.’ ‘Is that then thoroughly understood and agreed?’ ‘Yes, yes.’ ‘Very well, then. The next point is as regards the division of the spoil.’ ‘Yes, that should be well understood.’ ‘It must be well understood or I am off to find some others to help me in the matter. I have thought over my terms, and I do not, I assure you, intend to flinch from them.’ ‘What are they?’ ‘Listen, then. Let all the plunder be fairly divided into two parts, I will then take one part to myself and my friend, Kay, and you can divide the other among you in equal shares.’ The thieves looked rather blank at this proposition, and Blodget seeing that, added— ‘Well, if you don’t like that you have but to say so, and our bargain is at an end; but if I get all the information, and put up a robbery in the safe and quiet way that I can do it, I think myself entitled to the share I speak of, and I will have it too.’ ‘Be it so, then,’ said the spokesman of the party, ‘I agree, and I’m sure I can say the same for my friends here. We all agree to it.’ The others seconded the words of their spokesman, so that Blodget found he had made a pretty good bargain with the thieves, and he set to work arranging the robbery with all the tact and all the ingenuity he could bring to bear upon such an enterprise. When such an accomplished hand as Blodget took so much trouble, the result was all but certain. ‘Meet me, all of you,’ he said, ‘in half an hour’s time by the corner of Jackson- and Commercial-streets, and I will take you to the place. There will be no difficulty at all about it if you take care to comprehend what I wish each of you to do, and take care to do it as promptly as you possibly can.’ ‘Trust us for that,’ said one. ‘We know we can depend upon you, so you have only to say what you wish and you will soon see it accomplished.’ With this understanding, then, Blodget left them to proceed to a junk store which he knew was always open, to a particular knock, at any hour of the night. There Blodget bought a complete set of skeleton keys, besides such other little implements used in the art or profession of housebreaking, and concerning which the people of the shop asked him no questions. Thus provided, then, he took his way to the corner fixed on, there to wait the arrival of his confederates. He had not to wait long. In the course of two or three minutes the four men that he had deputed there to wait him were upon the spot. ‘You are punctual,’ said Blodget. ‘We ought to be.’ ‘How it rains,’ said one. ‘Yes; but that is all the better for us, you know,’ said Blodget. ‘It is indeed.’