Still it may be that he is
acquainted with the place, and that what he really wants is coal and
vegetables. On the whole, I think it is vegetables he is after."

"Are you going down to see?"

"No; I could not be of any assistance. Let him select for himself; I
don't know where the things are."

Then she said, "But suppose he comes up to the ground floor!"

"That's all right. We shall know it the minute he opens a door on that
floor. It will set off the alarm."

Just then the terrific buzzing broke out again. I said,

"He has arrived. I told you he would. I know all about burglars and
their ways. They are systematic people."

I went into the bath-room to see if I was right, and I was. I shut off
the dining-room and stopped the buzzing, and came back to bed. My wife
said,

"What do you suppose he is after now?"

I said, "I think he has got all the vegetables he wants and is coming up
for napkin-rings and odds and ends for the wife and children. They all
have families--burglars have--and they are always thoughtful of them,
always take a few necessaries of life for themselves, and fill out with
tokens of remembrance for the family. In taking them they do not forget
us: those very things represent tokens of his remembrance of us, and
also of our remembrance of him. We never get them again; the memory of
the attention remains embalmed in our hearts."

"Are you going down to see what it is he wants now?"

"No," I said, "I am no more interested than I was before. They are
experienced people,--burglars; _they_ know what they want; I should be
no help to him. I _think_ he is after ceramics and bric-a-brac and such
things. If he knows the house he knows that that is all that he can find
on the dining-room floor."

She said, with a strong interest perceptible in her tone, "Suppose he
comes up here!"

I said, "It is all right. He will give us notice."

"What shall we do then then?"

"Climb out of the window."

She said, a little restively, "Well, what is the use of a burglar-alarm
for us?"

"You have seen, dear heart, that it has been useful up to the present
moment, and I have explained to you how it will be continuously useful
after he gets up here."

That was the end of it. He didn't ring any more alarms. Presently I
said,

"He is disappointed, I think. He has gone off with the vegetables and
the bric-a-brac, and I think he is dissatisfied."

We went to sleep, and at a quarter before eight in the mornin