"'How am I to get up, Dad?' said I.
"'Oh, you can go up the spout,' says he; 'I'll warrant that it will hold you. I've seen to it that it was put on good and strong.'
"I tried it, and as far as I can remember I never went up a safer spout."
"And you opened the front door?" asked Aunt Martha.
"Indeed I did, ma'am," said the burglar, "you wouldn't catch me makin' no mistakes in that line.
"After a while I got too heavy to climb spouts, and I took to the regular business, and did well at it, too."
"Do you mean to say," asked Aunt Martha, "that you willingly and premeditatedly became a thief and midnight robber?"
"That's what I am, ma'am," said he; "I don't make no bones about it. I'm a number one, double-extra, back-springed, copper-fastened burglar, with all the attachments and noiseless treadle. That's what I am, and no mistake. There's all kinds of businesses in this world, and there's got to be people to work at every one of 'em; and when a fellow takes any particular line, his business is to do it well; that's my motto. When I break into a house I make it a point to clean it out first-class, and not to carry away no trash, nuther. Of course, I've had my ups and my downs, like other people,—preachers and doctors and storekeepers,—they all have them, and I guess the downs are more amusin' than the ups, at least to outsiders. I've just happened to think of one of them, and I'll let you have it.
"There was a man I knew named Jerry Hammond, that was a contractor, and sometimes he had pretty big jobs on hand, buildin' or road-makin' or somethin' or other. He'd contract to do anything, would Jerry, no matter whether he'd ever done it before or not. I got to know his times and seasons for collecting money, and I laid for him."
"Abominable meanness!" exclaimed my wife.