ould chloroform and also tie. Next, I
should help myself to the designated plunder. Suppose that as I were
about to depart a sleeping, uncalculated-for pet dog should jump out and
bark furiously? I reach for it and it snaps at me, biting my hand. I
grapple it by the throat and strangle it, but in its death throes it
bites my vest, and a button falls to the ground and rolls away. The dog
is at last silenced. Your ordinary burglar by this time would be so
unnerved that he would hasten off, not even realizing that he had been
bitten, that blood had flowed, or that the button was lost. Mr. Barnes
is sent to the house the next day. The lady suspects her coachman, and
Mr. Barnes consents to his arrest, not because he thinks him guilty, but
because, as the mistress thinks so, he may be, and then more especially,
his arrest will lull the fear of the real culprit. Mr. Barnes would
observe blood on the ground, on the dog's mouth, and he would find the
button. From the button he would find Mr. Thief, with his hand bitten,
and there you are."

"But how should you avoid all that?"

"In the first place, were I really wise, I should not have tell-tale
buttons about me at such a time. But let us suppose that the time had
not been of my own choosing, then the buttons might have been with me.
Assured as I should have been that the only person in the house lay
chloroformed and tied, I should not have lost my nerve as did the other
individual. Neither should I have allowed myself to be bitten, though if
the accident had occurred I should have stopped to wash up the stain
from the carpet while fresh, and also from the dog's mouth. I should
have discovered the loss of the button, searched for and recovered it,
untied the victim, and opened the windows, that the odor of chloroform
could pass off during the night. In fact, in the morning the only
evidence of crime would have been the strangled dog and the absence of
the pelf."

"It is easy enough to explain your actions under suppostitious
circumstances. But I doubt if in Pettingill's shoes you would have been
able to retain your presence of mind, and recover the lost button which
led to his final arrest."

"It is possible that you are right, for had I been Pettingill I should
have been coerced by necessities as he was. Yet I think I should not
have planned such a robbery, choosing my own time as he did, and then
have taken with me such a button. But from Mr. Barnes's standpoint, as I
sai