Swim just submerged the tip of the gloves..  It was because of his improvising technique of making separation of naphtha/acqueous layer...  Since his original container was quite wide, the naphtha layer was too thin to pull with pipette. So he submerged a glass into the mixture (with his finger tips going inside the water). This way the layer of naphtha was the first to go in the glass.. Then SWIM pulled the glass out, and could pipette out of it much much easier

but I dont know what is the case of 'littlewing'