Bank Robbers: The Last Great Heist

Bank Robbers: The Last Great Heist download +128k Something like a muffled chuckle came from behind the stairway door, but the good woman, intent on her grievance, did not hear it. Wilson heard, however, and let the boot-jack fall to the floor with a clatter. He picked it up and carried it over to its accustomed peg on the wall, whistling softly the tune which he had whistled to Billy in the old romping, astride-neck days:,Watland came puffing up, his round face red and perspiring. "Gee!" he panted, "I've been all the way to the store. Had to get some sulphur fer Ma. She found a wood-tick that old Sport scratched off him on the floor, an' she swears it's a bed-bug; an' now she's goin' to burn this sulphur in all the rooms.","No, we'll drive her home now. I guess I know what's best. Get on t'other side of her. Now then, don't let her turn back!",Mr Pledge walked the deck in charge of the watch. When Mr Lawrence appeared[Pg 309] Pledge saluted him in man-o'-war style, but Mr Lawrence's policy towards Pledge was the same as his policy towards Eagle. He would not sit at meals with him, or have anything to say to him outside the necessities of strict discipline and the ship's routine. Pledge saw pride, haughtiness, and contempt in the handsome face that was turned to him when Mr Lawrence condescended to ask a few questions about the ship's rate of going, and the like. But this much the Captain added: "Did you ever serve in a man-o'-war, sir?","You wait till you size him up," said Anson. "He's taller'n you are an' heavier, too. Oh, you'll have your hands full when he tackles you, Mister Scrapper-Bill."，Great mosquitoes whined about his head and stung his neck and ears. Mottled flies bit him and left a burning smart. The saw-like edges of the grass cut his hands and strove to trip him as he pushed his improvised raft forward. Once his foot slipped on the greasy bog, and the quicksands all but claimed him. But he pushed on, reaching at last the black sullen shallows, putrid and ill-smelling with decayed growth, and alive with hideous insects.，"I am extremely anxious to relieve you of the burden of maintaining me, and my fixed intention, if I can procure nothing to do between this and next month, is to work my passage out before the mast to the United States. If it should come to the backwoods, I am ready. I confess this life grows [Pg 56]insupportable, and the more burthensome to me because it is a tax upon you, sir."，Whilst they were coming Captain Weaver said to Captain Acton: "The master of that brig, sir, seems to have his wife aboard."Mr Lawrence well judged that if Greyquill locked him up for debt Old Harbour Town would rise against him. His windows would certainly be broken, his person might go in danger, for there was more than one who had suffered at the hands of Greyquill who would be grateful for any sort of excuse to administer a sound cudgelling to the old man, and take his chance of the law, fortified by the conviction that if it came to a fine the amount would be subscribed several times over.

"Go an' tell Croaker an' Ringdo the whole business, an' let that crow an' swamp-coon 'tend to you.","You might tell him that he's an angel if you wanter lie to him," returned Shipley, "or that he's a canny old skin-flint, if you wanter tell him the truth. I reckon, though, sonny, you best tell him that we'll be along 'tween ten and leven.,From the moment the ship in sight was reported expectation aboard the Aurora sprang and grew. Was she the Minorca? She was undoubtedly square-rigged, but the lenses of the comparatively feeble telescopes of those days could not determine before it fell dusk, whether she was rigged aft with square yards or merely with the mizzen and gaff topsail which made the Minorca a barque.,"Is papa on board?" asked Lucy.,"But what is to be hoped for in a place like this? Here are no industries; there is nothing doing, you cannot turn smacksman or start as a pilot.","I hope your cold is better, Mr Greyquill," said she, making to proceed in her walk.,"Ay, your honour," answered the fellow with a grin decidedly above a clown's intelligence.,They went on board the several vessels lying in the harbour, but the answer they received was that of the wharf: Miss Lucy Acton had not been seen, or at all events noticed.,He glanced at the window. It was raised but a few inches; exit was effectively closed in that direction. He made up his mind to reach for his hat and walk with dignity from the class, the church and those soulless, sinister-faced people who watched and waited gloatingly for his downfall. No, there was still a better plan. He would stagger and grope his way out like one who had been suddenly stricken with sickness. Yes, that was what he would do.,"Dogs and children," repeated the lawyer. "Dogs and children." He stood looking away through the failing light to where a strip of mauve-lined sky peeked through the heavy tissue of cloud.,"'Tis a pity he cannot command his appetites," said Miss Acton. "How would my heart bleed if he were my son! Poor, dear Sir William! with what Christian fortitude has he resigned himself to the wretchedness of seeing his son out of the Navy, and squandering his precious time in drinking with Lieutenant Tupman.","But," said Captain Acton in a tone that marked the depression of his spirits, "you must remember that this visible girdle of sea has, even in brilliant weather and from the mast-head, but a narrow width, and we might even now be abreast of the Minorca which is sailing yonder, or yonder, hull and spars down to a fathom below the sensible edge.".