Net::HTTP trying to call closed? on nil

[johnnyt]

When performing #request - if an error is raised there is an attempt to close the socket - which is sometimes nil - and the following error is raised which masks the original exception

NoMethodError - NoMethodError: undefined method `closed?' for NilClass:
.../maglev/lib/ruby/1.9/net/http.rb:1060:in `request'
.../maglev/lib/ruby/1.9/net/http.rb:1058:in `request'