‘What is to be done with this fellow?’ said one of them. ‘Nothing: let him be. Now furnish yourselves with lighted tapers, and let us set to work.’ Each of the thieves in the course of another moment had a little piece of lighted taper in his hand, and it had the advantage that it could be, by a little pressure of the finger and thumb, stuck on any convenient place in an instant. ‘Now, quick, all of you,’ added Blodget, ‘and you follow me.’ He spoke to the one whose appointed duty it was to do so, and then at two steps at a time Blodget ascended a staircase. When they got to the first floor landing, Blodget and the man who was with him both stopped, and sitting down on the stairs, they drew rapidly over their boots, each of them a pair of thick worsted socks, so that their footsteps were really quite inaudible after that. Neither did they leave any signs of footmarks any where, which otherwise, coming out of the wet street, they might have done; and any attempt to trace them beyond the first floor, after they had put on the socks, would have been very difficult indeed. ‘This a good dodge,’ whispered the thief to Blodget. ‘Yes, but still be as quiet as you can.’ ‘I will.’ ‘This way. This way.’ The thief was of rather a loquacious order of men. Perhaps, after all, he was a little terrified at the situation in which he found himself, but certainly he could not, or would not, obey Blodget’s injunctions to silence. Blodget would, under any other circumstances, have quarrelled with him for his contumacy, but just then he did not think proper to do so, as he could not tell what emergency might arise in which he might require the best services of his companion, with good will to render them; so did he answer him, although it was as shortly as he possibly could, to be at the same time at all consistent with civility. They made their way up to the second floor of the house, on which the sleeping apartments were situated. On a gilt bracket, fixed about twelve feet high in the wall of the sort of corridor which ran the whole length of the house, Blodget saw a night lamp burning, and by its aid he was able to distinguish the different doors of the sleeping portion of the house. The man who was with him, and who was named Ben, saw Blodget looking about him. ‘Don’t you know the room?’ he said. ‘Yes—oh, yes; all’s right.’ ‘Well, that’s a comfort. Do you know, captain, that it ain’t pleasant to be so far off in the street?’ ‘Why so?’ ‘Because, if there should be a row, how are we to get off?’ ‘Pshaw! I never contemplate anything of the sort.’ ‘Oh, you don’t?’ ‘No; and if you will but be a little cautious and careful in what you say, we shall do well enough.’ ‘Trust me for that.’ ‘Curse you,’ thought Blodget to himself, ‘for a chattering parrot. It is the last time I will take you with me upon an expedition of this sort.’