"Do you mind telling me how you came to be a burglar? You make such a
remarkably bad one, that I should think you would have chosen almost any
other profession."

He told his story between bites. To one more experienced in police
records, it might have sounded a trifle fishy, but he had an honest face
and blue eyes, and it never entered her head to doubt him. The burglar
commenced it sullenly; no one had ever believed him yet and he wasn't
expecting her to. He would like to have invented something a little more
plausible, but he lacked the imagination to tell a convincing lie. So,
as usual, he lamely told the truth.

Patty listened with strained attention. His tale was somewhat muffled by
lemon pie, and his vocabulary did not always coincide with her own, but
she managed to get the gist of it.

By rights he was a gardener. In the last place where he worked he used
to sleep in the attic, because the gentleman he was away a lot, and the
lady she was afraid not to have a man in the house. And a gas-fitter,
that he had always thought was his friend, give him some beer one night
and got him drunk, and took away the key of the back door. And while he
(the gardener) was sound asleep on the children's sand pile under the
apple tree in the back yard, the gas-fitter entered the house and stole
an overcoat and a silver coffee-pot and a box of cigars and a bottle of
whisky and two umbrellas. And they proved it on him (the gardener) and
he was sent up for two years. And when he come out, no one wouldn't give
him no work.

"An' ye can't make me believe," he added bitterly, "that that beer
wasn't doped!"

"Oh, but it was terrible of you to get drunk!" said Patty, shocked.

"'Twas an accident," he insisted.

"If you are _sure_ that you'll never do it again," she said, "I'll get
you a job. But you must promise, on your word of honor as a gentleman.
You know I couldn't recommend a drunkard."

The man grinned feebly.

"I guess ye'll not be findin' anybody that will be wantin' a jailbird."

"Oh, yes, I will! I know exactly the man. He's a friend of mine, and he
likes jailbirds. He realizes that it's only luck that made him a
millionaire instead of a convict. He always gives a man a chance to
start again. He used to have a murderer in charge of his greenhouses,
and a cattle thief to milk the cows. I'm sure he'll like you. Come with
me, and I'll write you a letter of introduction."

Patty gathered her sheets about her and prepar