e. In the evening, as at 21 Fifth Avenue, there was
music--the stately measures of the orchestrelle--while Mark Twain smoked
and mingled unusual speculation with long, long backward dreams.

It was three months from the day of arrival in Redding that some guests
came to Stormfield without invitation--two burglars, who were carrying
off some bundles of silver when they were discovered. Claude, the
butler, fired a pistol after them to hasten their departure, and
Clemens, wakened by the shots, thought the family was opening champagne
and went to sleep again.

It was far in the night; but neighbor H. A. Lounsbury and Deputy-Sheriff
Banks were notified, and by morning the thieves were captured, though
only after a pretty desperate encounter, during which the officer
received a bullet-wound. Lounsbury and a Stormfield guest had tracked
them in the dark with a lantern to Bethel, a distance of some seven
miles. The thieves, also their pursuers, had boarded the train there.
Sheriff Banks was waiting at the West Redding station when the train
came down, and there the capture was made. It was a remarkably prompt
and shrewd piece of work. Clemens gave credit for its success chiefly
to Lounsbury, whose talents in many fields always impressed him. The
thieves were taken to the Redding Town Hall for a preliminary healing.
Subsequently they received severe sentences.

Clemens tacked this notice on his front door:

NOTICE

TO THE NEXT BURGLAR

There is nothing but plated ware in this house now and henceforth.

You will find it in that brass thing in the dining-room over in the
corner by the basket of kittens.

If you want the basket put the kittens in the brass thing. Do not
make a noise--it disturbs the family.

You will find rubbers in the front hall by that thing which has the
umbrellas in it, chiffonnier, I think they call it, or pergola, or
something like that.

Please close the door when you go away!

Very truly yours,
S. L. CLEMENS.

CCLXXIII. STORMFIELD PHILOSOPHIES

Now came the tranquil days of the Connecticut autumn. The change of
the landscape colors was a constant delight to Mark Twain. There
were several large windows in his room, and he called them his
picture-gallery. The window-panes were small, and each formed a separate
picture of its own that was changing almost hourly.