But he had not been an alcoholic for a long enough period to find out that the bars stayed open long after midnight. The only people that there was the slightest chance of trouble with, were the roisterers who staggered out of the saloons from time to time, and here the danger was slight, for as soon as an inebriate hove into view the Picaroon would wink mightily, link arms with Pat on one side and with Comstock on the other and the trio would mimic drunkenness and sing bawdy songs till the real drunks were gone. "What," Comstock asked, "are the chances of bumping into an R.A.?" "Aha!" The Picaroon placed his long forefinger next to his nose. "You are attempting to tear aside the veil that hides the Picaroon's methods!" "Fiddle faddle," Pat said nastily, "answer him!" Coming to a halt on a silent street corner under a lamp post that cast a spotlight down around his piratical figure, the Picaroon said, "At night, after curfew, when all law-abiding citizens sleep...." He lowered his voice to a shadow of a whisper forcing Pat and Comstock to place their ears near his mouth, "you realize, don't you, both of you, that I am giving away my most cherished secret, the modus operandi that allows me to operate and so flout the law?" They nodded. "Then let it be known, but just to us, that I have found when all the other law-abiding citizens sleep, why, so do the R.A.'s." Twirling in a mad pirouette, the Picaroon threw back his head and laughed. "From curfew to dawn, there is no law!" Clapping a hand over the Picaroon's mouth, Comstock snapped, "Shut up! You'll rouse the dead with all that noise!" A little sobered the Picaroon said, "Now you have my most valued secret, see that you guard it with your lives!" Putting his finger to his lips he added, "Hisssst...." Pat asked, "What is it?" "Nothing," the Picaroon said, "I just like to say hisssst...." Shrugging behind the Picaroon's back, Comstock gestured to Pat to pay no mind to their mad guide. Aloud, he asked, "Do you know your way to 14 Anthony Comstock Road?" "I know all the ways," the Picaroon said, and again taking the lead, walked with exaggerated steps, on tip toe, as though fearing to wake the sleeping world. It was a long trip on foot and dawn was breaking as they came in sight of some landmarks that Comstock remembered. If his mental picture of the terrain was correct, the car in which Grundy, Helen and he had made their escape from the Fathers should be downhill from where he and Pat and the Picaroon were now standing. He conveyed this information to the others and this time he took the lead with Pat behind him and the Picaroon still walking on tip toe bringing up the rear. As they went downhill Comstock could see his goal. Bowdler's house lay still and quiet, the refuge for which he yearned. But it might just as well have been on the other side of his world for all the good it was as long as the force field surrounded it.