ife being used was not called upon to spread putty,
but was being inserted cleverly away from the glass and causing a
clicking noise, thus showing, in connection with a wonderful degree of
elasticity, that it was dealing with metal.

While its owner was at his busiest another noise arose, something
between a whine and a squeak, the effect of which was to make the
operator leave off his task, take two or three steps, and kneel down
beneath a bush, to whisper words to something alive connected with its
liver--words which produced silence--and return to the window.

The faint clicking began again, and the extremely thin putty-knife did
its work in the skilled hands so well that in a very short time the
doorlike window yielded and uttered a ghost of a groan as it turned upon
its hinges.

"Poor thing, then! Did 'um disturb it in the middle of the night?" said
the tradesman to himself, stepping softly in. "Just like 'em! Plenty
to eat, plenty to drink, plenty o' soft beds to sleep in, and too lazy
to hyle a hinge. When I keep servants I'll--Here, let's just shut you."

He carefully closed the window, before standing listening for a few
moments and looking about till his eyes rested upon a softly-quilted
couch, half-covered with a satin-lined Polar bearskin, bathed, as a poet
would say, in the lambent rays of the moon, which in this instance came
through the conservatory.

Towards this the man stepped in the dark, and, to his intense disgust,
kicked heavily against a hassock.

The words he uttered were unprintable, save the latter portion, which
were something about the tradesman's "wussest corn." The next minute it
appeared as if he was about to examine the damage done, for his figure
blotted out a portion of the sofa's shape, and it, too, was bathed in
the lambent light, as he busily unlaced and drew off, not only one, but
two extremely big, ugly hunting boots, with star-like cuts in them,
evidently to ease the "wussest" and other corns.

But, oddly enough, the night bird did not examine his injury, but placed
the boots as if ready for cleaning--of which they were very much in
need--in the very lightest spot he could find; that is to say, full in
the aforesaid lambent light.

Then he began to muse.

"Soft as a hair cushin in a horsepittle," he muttered. "Now, I could
jest lie down, kiver myself with this here soft counterpin, and do my
doss like a prince. Nobody at home but the servants and them gals. The