of ventilation. The
aroma of the late tenants still lingered in the air.

"I returned through the opening and began my labors. First, with a hard
brush I cleaned out both sets of grooves, top and bottom. Then, into
each groove I painted a thick coating of tallow and black lead, mixed
into a paste and heated. By moving the panels backwards and forwards a
great number of times I distributed the lubricant and brought the black
lead to such a polish that the doors slid with the greatest ease and
without a sound. I was so pleased with the result that I was tempted to
engage the room next door, but as this might have aroused
suspicion--seeing that I had a whole house already--I refrained; and
shortly afterwards the floor was taken by a family of Polish Jews, who
apparently supplemented their income by letting part of it furnished.

"I now pass over an intervening period and come to the circumstances of
one of my most interesting and stirring experiences. It was about this
time that some misbegotten mechanician invented the automatic magazine
pistol, and thereby rendered possible a new and execrable type of
criminal. It was not long before the appropriate criminal arrived. The
scene of the first appearance was the suburb of Tottenham, where two
Russian Poles attempted, and failed in, an idiotic street robbery. The
attempt was made in broad daylight in the open street, and the two
wretches, having failed, ran away, shooting at every human being they
met. In the end they were both killed--one by his own hand--but not
until they had murdered a gallant constable and a poor little child and
injured in all, twenty-two persons.

"I read the newspaper account with deep interest and the conviction that
this was only a beginning. Those two frenzied degenerates belonged to a
common enough type; the type of the Slav criminal who has not sense
enough to take precautions nor courage enough to abide the fortune of
war. The automatic pistol, I felt sure, would bring him into view; and I
was not mistaken.

"One night, returning from a tour of inspection, I met a small excited
crowd accompanying a procession of three police ambulances. I joined the
throng and presently turned into a small blind thoroughfare in which had
gathered a small and nervous-looking crowd and a few flurried policemen.
Several of the windows were shattered and on the ground were three
prostrate figures. One was dead, the others were badly wounded, and all
three were m