ousand dollars; young Mr. Tennant barked
both shins on a wood-box and dropped a loaded Colt revolver into the
well of the stair; Mrs. Tennant was longer in appearing, having tarried
to try the effect upon her nerves and color sense of three divers
wrappers. The butler, an Admirable Crichton of a man, came, bearing a
bucket of water in case the house was on fire. Mrs. Tennant's French
maid carried a case of her mistress's jewels, and seemed determined to
leave.

Miss Tennant stood in the door-way of her room. She was pale and greatly
agitated, but her eyes shone with courage and resolve. Her arched,
blue-veined feet were thrust into a pair of red Turkish slippers turning
up at the toes. A mandarin robe of dragoned blue brocade was flung over
her night-gown. In one hand she had a golf club--a niblick.

"Oh!" she cried, when her father was sufficiently recovered from
overturning the cabinet to listen, "there was a man in my room."

Mr. Tennant } { furiously.
Young Mr. } {
Tennant } { sleepily.
} {
The butler } "A man?" { as if he thought she
} { meant to say a fire.
The French } {
maid } { blushing crimson.

Then, and again all together:

Mr. Tennant-- "Which way did he go?"
Young Mr. Tennant-- "Which man?"
The butler-- "A white man?"
The French maid (with a kind of ecstasy)--
"A man!"

"Out the window!" cried Miss Tennant.

Her father and brother dashed downstairs and out into the grounds. The
butler hurried to the telephone (still carrying his bucket of water) and
rang Central and asked for the chief of police. Central answered, after
a long interval, that the chief of police was out of order, and rang
off.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Tennant arrived, and, having coldly recovered her
jewel-case from the custody of the French maid, prepared to be told the
details of what hadn't happened.

"He was bending over my dressing-table, mamma," said Miss Tennant. "I
could see him plainly in the moonlight; he had a mask, and was smooth
shaven, and he wore gloves."

"I wonder why he wore gloves," mused Mrs. Tennant.

"I suppose," said Miss Tennant, "that he had heard of the Bertillon
system, and was afraid of being tracked by his finger-marks."

"Did he say anything?"

"Not to me, I think," said Miss Tennant, "but