The Water Goats, and Other Troubles Page 9

  III. OUR FIRST BURGLAR

  When our new suburban house was completed I took Sarah out to see it,and she liked it all but the stairs.

  "Edgar," she said, when she had ascended to the second floor, "I don'tknow whether it is imagination or not, but it seems to me that thesestairs are funny, some way. I can't understand it. They are not a longflight, and they are not unusually steep, but they seem to be unusuallywearying. I never knew a short flight to tire me so, and I have climbedmany flights in the six years we have lived in flats."

  "Perhaps, Sarah," I said, with mild dissimulation, "you are unusuallytired to-day."

  The fact was that I had planned those stairs myself, and for aparticular reason I had made the rise of each step three inches morethan the customary height, and in this way I had saved two steps. I hadalso made the tread of the steps unusually narrow; and the reason wasthat I had found, from long experience, that stair carpet wears first onthe tread of the steps, where the foot falls. By making the steps tallenough to save two, and by making the tread narrow, I reduced the wearon the carpet to a minimum. I believe in economy where it is possible.For the same reason I had the stair banisters made wide, with asaddle-like top to the newel post, to tempt my son and daughter to slidedownstairs. The less they used the stairs the longer the carpet wouldlast.

  I need hardly say that Sarah has a fear of burglars; most women have. Asfor myself, I prefer not to meet a burglar. It is all very well to getup in the night and prowl about with a pistol in one hand, seeking toeliminate the life of a burglar, and some men may like it; but I am ofa very excitable nature, and I am sure that if I did find a burglar andsucceeded in shooting him, I should be in such an excited state thatI could not sleep again that night--and no man can afford to lose hisnight's rest.

  There are other objections to shooting a burglar in the house, and theseobjections apply with double force when the house and its furnishingsare entirely new. Although some of the rugs in our house were red, notall of them were; and I had no guarantee that if I shot a burglarhe would lie down on a red rug to bleed to death. A burglar does notconsider one's feelings, and would be quite as apt to bleed on a greenrug, and spoil it, as not. Until burglarizing is properly regulated andburglars are educated, as they should be, in technical burglary schools,we cannot hope that a shot burglar will staunch his wound until he canfind a red rug to lie down on.

  And there are still other objections to shooting a burglar. If allburglars were fat, one of these would be removed; but perhaps a thinburglar might get in front of my revolver, and in that case the bulletwould be likely to go right through him and continue on its way, andperhaps break a mirror or a cut-glass dish. I am a thin man myself, andif a burglar shot at me he might damage things in the same way.

  I thought all these things over when we decided to build in the suburbs,for Sarah is very nervous about burglars, and makes me get up at theslightest noise and go poking about. Only the fact that no burglar hadever entered our flat at night had prevented what might have been aserious accident to a burglar, for I made it a rule, when Sarah wakenedme on such occasions, to waste no time, but to go through the rooms ashastily as possible and get back to bed; and at the speed I travelled Imight have bumped into a burglar in the dark and knocked him over, andhis head might have struck some hard object, causing concussion of thebrain; and as a burglar has a small brain a small amount of concussionmight have ruined it entirely. But as I am a slight man it might havebeen my brain that got concussed. A father of a family has to think ofthese things.

  The nervousness of Sarah regarding burglars had led me in this way tostudy the subject carefully, and my adoption of jet-black pajamas asnightwear was not due to cowardice on my part. I properly reasoned thatif a burglar tried to shoot me while I was rushing around the houseafter him in the darkness, a suit of black pajamas would somewhat spoilhis aim, and, not being able to see me, he would not shoot at all.In this way I should save Sarah the nerve shock that would follow theexplosion of a pistol in the house. For Sarah was very much more afraidof pistols than of burglars. I am sure there were only two reasons whyI had never killed a burglar with a pistol: one was that no burglar hadever entered our flat, and the other was that I never had a pistol.

  But I knew that one is much less protected in a suburb than in town,and when I decided to build I studied the burglar protection matter mostcarefully. I said nothing to Sarah about it, for fear it would upset hernerves, but for months I considered every method that seemed to haveany merit, and that would avoid getting a burglar's blood--ormine--spattered around on our new furnishings. I desired some method bywhich I could finish up a burglar properly without having to leave mybed, for although Sarah is brave enough in sending me out of bed tocatch a burglar, I knew she must suffer severe nerve strain during thetime I was wandering about in the dark. Her objection to explosives hadalso to be considered, and I really had to exercise my brain more thancommon before I hit upon what I may now consider the only perfect methodof handling burglars.

  Several things coincided to suggest my method. One of these was Sarah'sfoolish notion that our silver must, every night, be brought fromthe dining-room and deposited under our bed. This I considered a mostfoolhardy tempting of fate. It coaxed any burglar who ordinarily wouldhave quietly taken the silver from the dining-room and have then goneaway peacefully, to enter our room. The knowledge that I lay in bedready at any time to spring out upon him would make him prepare hisrevolver, and his nervousness might make him shoot me, which would quiteupset Sarah's nerves. I told Sarah so, but she had a hereditary instinctfor bringing the silver to the bedroom, and insisted. I saw that inthe suburban house this, would be continued as "bringing the silverupstairs," and a trial of my carpet-saving stairs suggested to me myburglar-defeating plan. I had the apparatus built into the house, and Ihad the house planned to agree with the apparatus.

  For several months after we moved into the house I had no burglars, butI felt no fear of them in any event. I was prepared for them.

  In order not to make Sarah nervous, I explained to her that my inventionof a silver-elevator was merely a time-saving device. From the top ofthe dining-room sideboard I ran upright tracks through the ceiling tothe back of the hall above, and in these I placed a glass case, whichcould be run up and down the tracks like a dumbwaiter. All our servanthad to do when she had washed the silver was to put it in the glasscase, and I had attached to the top of the case a stout steel cablewhich ran to the ceiling of the hall above, over a pulley, and so to ourbedroom, which was at the front of the hall upstairs. By this means Icould, when I was in bed, pull the cable, and the glass case of silverwould rise to the second floor. Our bedroom door opened upon the hall,and from the bed I could see the glass case; but in order that I mightbe sure that the silver was there I put a small electric light inthe case and kept it burning all night. Sarah was delighted with thisarrangement, for in the morning all I had to do was to pay out the steelcable and the silver would descend to the dining-room, and the maidcould have the table all set by the time breakfast was ready. Not oncedid Sarah have a suspicion that all this was not merely a householdeconomy, but my burglar trap.

  On the sixth of August, at two o'clock in the morning, Sarah awakenedme, and I immediately sat straight up in bed. There was an undoubtablenoise of sawing, and I knew at once that a burglar was entering ourhome. Sarah was trembling, and I knew she was getting nervous, but Iordered her to remain calm.

  "Sarah," I said, in a whisper, "be calm! There is not the least danger.I have been expecting this for some time, and I only hope the burglarhas no dependent family or poor old mother to support. Whatever happens,be calm and keep perfectly quiet."

  With that I released the steel cable from the head of my bed and let theglass case full of silver slide noiselessly to the sideboard.

  "Edgar!" whispered Sarah in agonized tones, "are you giving him oursilver?"

  "Sarah!" I whispered sternly, "remember what I have just said. Be calmand keep perfectly quiet." And I would say
no more.

  In a very short time I heard the window below us open softly, and Iknew the burglar was entering the parlour from the side porch. I countedtwenty, which I had figured would be the time required for him to reachthe dining-room, and then, when I was sure he must have seen the silvershining in the glass case, I slowly pulled on the steel cable and raisedcase and silver to the hall above. Sarah began to whisper to me, but Isilenced her.

  What I had expected happened. The burglar, seeing the silver risethrough the ceiling, left the dining-room and went into the hall. There,from the foot of the stairs, he could see the case glowing in the hallabove, and without hesitation he mounted the stairs. As he reached thetop I had a good view of him, for he was silhouetted against the lightthat glowed from the silver case. He was a most brutal looking fellowof the prize-fighting type, but I almost laughed aloud when I saw hisbuild. He was