months after we moved into the house I had no burglars, but
I felt no fear of them in any event. I was prepared for them.

In order not to make Sarah nervous, I explained to her that my invention
of a silver-elevator was merely a time-saving device. From the top of
the dining-room sideboard I ran upright tracks through the ceiling to
the back of the hall above, and in these I placed a glass case, which
could be run up and down the tracks like a dumbwaiter. All our servant
had to do when she had washed the silver was to put it in the glass
case, and I had attached to the top of the case a stout steel cable
which ran to the ceiling of the hall above, over a pulley, and so to our
bedroom, which was at the front of the hall upstairs. By this means I
could, when I was in bed, pull the cable, and the glass case of silver
would rise to the second floor. Our bedroom door opened upon the hall,
and from the bed I could see the glass case; but in order that I might
be sure that the silver was there I put a small electric light in
the case and kept it burning all night. Sarah was delighted with this
arrangement, for in the morning all I had to do was to pay out the steel
cable and the silver would descend to the dining-room, and the maid
could have the table all set by the time breakfast was ready. Not once
did Sarah have a suspicion that all this was not merely a household
economy, but my burglar trap.

On the sixth of August, at two o'clock in the morning, Sarah awakened
me, and I immediately sat straight up in bed. There was an undoubtable
noise of sawing, and I knew at once that a burglar was entering our
home. Sarah was trembling, and I knew she was getting nervous, but I
ordered her to remain calm.

"Sarah," I said, in a whisper, "be calm! There is not the least danger.
I have been expecting this for some time, and I only hope the burglar
has no dependent family or poor old mother to support. Whatever happens,
be calm and keep perfectly quiet."

With that I released the steel cable from the head of my bed and let the
glass case full of silver slide noiselessly to the sideboard.

"Edgar!" whispered Sarah in agonized tones, "are you giving him our
silver?"

"Sarah!" I whispered sternly, "remember what I have just said. Be calm
and keep perfectly quiet." And I would say no more.

In a very short time I heard the window below us open softly, and I
knew the burglar was entering the parlour from the side porch. I counted
t