the ruder, rough-house methods of the highwayman left
me entirely unable to cope with the situation.

"Certainly," said I, turning and ushering him down the hall to the great
dining-room where the marvellous plate of the Constant-Scrappes shone
effulgently upon the sideboard--or at least such of it as there was no
room for in the massive safe.

"Get me some rope," commanded the intruder. Still under the range of
those dreadful pistols, I obeyed.

"Sit down in that chair, and, by the leaping Gladstone, if you move an
inch I'll blow your face off feature by feature," growled the intruder.

"Who's moving?" I retorted, angrily.

"Well, see that whoever else is you are not," he retorted, winding the
rope three times around my waist and fastening me securely to the back
of the chair. "Now hold out your hands."

I obeyed, and he bound them as tightly as though they were fastened
together with rods of iron. A moment later my feet and knees were
similarly bound and I was as fast in the toils as Gulliver, when the
Liliputians fell upon him in his sleep and bound him to the earth.

[Illustration: "AS KEEN AND HIGH-HANDED A PERFORMANCE AS I EVER
WITNESSED"]

And then I was a mute witness to as keen and high-handed a performance
as I ever witnessed. One by one every item of the Constant-Scrappe's
silver service, valued at ninety thousand dollars, was removed from the
sideboard and taken along the hall and placed in the tonneau of the
automobile. Next the safe in which lay not only the famous gold service
used only at the very swellest functions, said to have cost one hundred
and seventy-five thousand dollars for the gold alone, to say nothing of
the exquisite workmanship, but--it made me gnash my teeth in impotent
rage to see it--Henriette's own jewel-box containing a hundred thousand
dollars worth of her own gems and some thirty thousand dollars in cash,
was rifled of its contents and disposed of similarly to the silver in
the gaping maw of that damned automobile tonneau.

"Now," said the intruder, loosening my feet and releasing me from the
chair, "take me to my lady's boudoir. There is room in the car for a few
more objects of virtu."

I obeyed on the instant and a few moments later the scene of
below-stairs was repeated, with me powerless to resist. Pictures,
bric-a-brac, and other things to the tune of twenty thousand dollars
more were removed, as calmly and as coolly as though there were no law
against that sort of