guards. Here he waited until a
few minutes later he was joined by the captain.

Meanwhile I stood in the wood with Merton. I think he enjoyed it. I
did not. A first attempt at burglary is not in all its aspects heroic,
and I was wet, chilled, and anxious.

"First actor on," murmured Merton. "Should like to have seen that
interview. Can't be actor and audience both."

I hazily reflected that for myself I was both, and that the actor had
just then a sharp fit of stage-scare. I let him run on unanswered,
while the rain poured down my back.

At last he said: "I think Alphonse has had time enough."

"Hardly," said I. I did not want to talk. I was longing to do
something--to begin. The punctual guard went by twenty feet away, the
smoke of his pipe blown toward us.

"I never liked pipe-smoking on the picket-line," said Merton. "You can
smell it of a damp night at any distance. Remind me to tell you a
story about it. Heavens!" he cried, as a flash of lightning for an
instant set everything in noon-day clearness, "I hope we shall not
have much of that. Keep down, Greville. Ever steal apples? Strike that
repeater." I did so. "It's a good deal like waiting for the word to
charge. I remember that once we labeled ourselves for recognition in
case we did not come out alive. Just after that I fell ill."

"Hush!" I said. "There he is again."

"All right; give him a moment," said Merton, "and now you have a full
half-hour. Come."

We crossed the narrow road and stood below the garden wall. He gave me
the aid of his bent knee and then his shoulder, and I was at once
lying flat on the garden wall. My repeater rang 10:15, and then, as I
lay, I heard voices. This time there were two men. They paused on the
road just below me to light cigarettes. One of them consigned the
weather to a place where it might have proved more agreeable. The
other said Jean had a pleasanter station in the house. This was not
very reassuring news, but I was in for it and wildly eager to be
through with a perilous adventure.

As they disappeared, I dropped from the wall into the garden and fell
with an alarming crash, rolling over on a pile of flower-pots. There
was such a clatter as on any quiet night must have been surely heard.
For a moment I lay still, and then, hearing no signals of alarm, I
rose and groped along the wall to the door of the conservatory. It was
not locked. Pausing on the step outside for a moment, I took off my
shoes and secured