49. A BURGLAR'S EXPERIENCE
A New York paper prints this extract from the reminiscences of a retired burglar:
"I think about the most curious man I ever met," said the retired burglar, "I met in a house in eastern Connecticut, and I shouldn't know him, either, if I should meet him again unless I should hear him speak. It was so dark where I met him that I never saw him at all. I had looked around the house down-stairs, and actually hadn't seen a thing worth carrying off. It was the poorest house I ever was in, and it wasn't a bad-looking house on the outside, either. I got up-stairs and groped around a little, and finally turned into a room that was darker than Egypt. I had not gone more than three steps in this room when I heard a man say:
"'Hello, there.'
"'Hello,' says I.
"'Who are you?' says the man; 'burglar?'
"And I said yes; I did do something in that line occasionally.
"'Miserable business to be in, ain't it?' said the man. His voice came from a bed over in the corner of the room, and I knew he hadn't even sat up.
"And I said, 'Well, I dunno. I got to support my family some way.'
"'Well, you've just wasted a night here,' says the man. 'Did you see anything down-stairs worth stealing?'
"And I said no, I hadn't.
"'Well, there's less up-stairs,' says the man; and then I heard him turn over and settle down to go to sleep again. I'd like to have gone over there and kicked him, but I didn't. It was getting late, and I thought, all things considered, that I might just as well let him have his sleep out."