Why, Tess, even, would be scared if she came across a burglar! Dot was quite sure of that; and she felt happy to know that she was really not so scared as she supposed she would have been.
The burglar did not seem any more fearful in appearance than the iceman, or the man who took out the ashes, or the man who came to sharpen the knives and had a key-bugle—
Oh! and maybe burglars carried something to announce their calling, like other tradesmen. The junkman had a string of bells on his wagon; the peanutman had a whistle on his roaster; the man who mended tinware and umbrellas beat a shiny new tin pan as he walked through Willow Street—
“Oh!” ejaculated the curious Dot, right out loud, “do you use a whistle, or a bell, or anything, in your business, please?”
My goodness! how that man jumped! Dot thought he would fall right over backward, and the round ray of the spotlight in his hand shot up to the ceiling and all about the room before it fell on Dot, standing over by the hall door.
“Well, I’ll be jiggered!” gasped the man, in utter amazement. “Wha—what did you say, miss?”
He was not really a man, after all. Dot saw by his lean face that he was nothing more than a half grown boy. So every little bit of fear she had felt for the burglar departed. He could not really be a journeyman burglar—only an apprentice, just learning his trade. Dot became confidential at once, and came closer to him.
“I—I never met anybody in your business before,” said the smallest Corner House girl. “If you please, do you only come into folks’s houses at night?”
“Huh!” croaked the young man, hoarsely. “Seems ter me we’re workin’ both night an’ day at this season. I never did see it so hard on a poor feller before.”
“Oh, my!” exclaimed Dot. “Do you have busy seasons, and slack seasons, like the peddlers?”