ng the burglar alarm?'

"He looked confused and ashamed, and said, with embarrassment: 'I beg a
thousand pardons. I did not know you had a burglar alarm, else I would
have rung it. I beg you will not mention it where my parents may hear of
it, for they are old and feeble, and such a seemingly wanton breach of
the hallowed conventionalities of our Christian civilization might all
too rudely sunder the frail bridge which hangs darkling between the pale
and evanescent present and the solemn great deeps of the eternities. May
I trouble you for a match?'

"I said: 'Your sentiments do you honor, but if you will allow me to say
it, metaphor is not your best hold. Spare your thigh; this kind light
only on the box, and seldom there, in fact, if my experience may be
trusted. But to return to business: how did you get in here?'

"'Through a second-story window.'

"It was even so. I redeemed the tinware at pawnbroker's rates, less cost
of advertising, bade the burglar good-night, closed the window after
him, and retired to headquarters to report. Next morning we sent for
the burglar-alarm man, and he came up and explained that the reason the
alarm did not 'go off' was that no part of the house but the first floor
was attached to the alarm. This was simply idiotic; one might as well
have no armor on at all in battle as to have it only on his legs.
The expert now put the whole second story on the alarm, charged three
hundred dollars for it, and went his way. By and by, one night, I found
a burglar in the third story, about to start down a ladder with a lot
of miscellaneous property. My first impulse was to crack his head with a
billiard cue; but my second was to refrain from this attention, because
he was between me and the cue rack. The second impulse was plainly the
soundest, so I refrained, and proceeded to compromise. I redeemed the
property at former rates, after deducting ten per cent. for use of
ladder, it being my ladder, and, next day we sent down for the expert
once more, and had the third story attached to the alarm, for three
hundred dollars.

"By this time the 'annunciator' had grown to formidable dimensions. It
had forty-seven tags on it, marked with the names of the various rooms
and chimneys, and it occupied the space of an ordinary wardrobe. The
gong was the size of a wash-bowl, and was placed above the head of our
bed. There was a wire from the house to the coachman's quarters in the
stable, and a noble gong al