The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Stories of the Three Burglars
by Frank Richard Stockton

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Title: The Stories of the Three Burglars

Author: Frank Richard Stockton

Release Date: February 5, 2004 [EBook #10948]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Illustration: Frank R. Stockton]

The Stories
of the
Three Burglars

By
FRANK R. STOCKTON

1889

THE STORIES OF THE THREE BURGLARS.

I am a householder in a pleasant country neighbourhood, about twenty
miles from New York. My family consists of myself and wife, our boy,
George William, aged two, two maid-servants, and a man; but in the
summer we have frequent visitors, and at the time of which I am about to
write my Aunt Martha was staying with us.

My house is large and pleasant, and we have neighbours near enough for
social purposes and yet not too near or too many to detract from the
rural aspect of our surroundings. But we do not live in a paradise; we
are occasionally troubled by mosquitoes and burglars.

Against the first of these annoyances we have always been able to guard
ourselves, at least in a measure, and our man and the cook declare that
they have become so used to them that they do not mind them; but to
guard against burglars is much more difficult, and to become used to
them would, I think, require a great deal of practice.

For several months before the period of this narrative our neighbourhood
had been subject to visits from burglars. From time to time houses had
been entered and robbed, and the offenders had never been detected.

We had no police force, not even a village organization. There was a
small railway station near our house, and six miles away was the county
town. For fire and police protection each household was obliged to
depend upon itself.

Before the beginning of the burglarious enterprises in our midst, we had
not felt the need of much protection in this direction; sometimes
poultry was stolen, but this was a rare occurrence, and, although
windows and doors were general