You can't win

by Jack Black

This thing that softly blocks the door is probably a rug or an article of clothing. That’s easy. You release the doorknob, stoop slowly, and put your hand around inside. Yes, it’s a rug, a fur rug. You nip a few strands of hair in your fingers and tug at it gently. The thing comes to life with a scared howl that turns your blood to ice water. You jump up, pull the door shut with a bang, and hasten to the top of the stairs with sure and certain step. It took you fifteen minutes to ascend that stairway. You know every inch of it. You straddle the banister and slide down—it’s quicker and safer. In the dining room you slam the door shut, and none too soon. The man upstairs has released the big mastiff and he’s roaring at the dining-room door. You made no mistake when you left the kitchen door open. You dash through it, pulling it shut behind you just as the man inside opens the dining-room door for his dog.

You take the back fence, tearing your clothes. The big dog is in the back yard now; you hear his ferocious growls plainer than ever. You run into a vacant lot, toward the next street. You hear the master urging his dog to follow you, but he is too well trained and refuses to leave his own yard.

The householder is a regular man; not to be balked of his burglar he opens up with a six-shooter and empties it at you. After the first shot you instinctively begin making side jumps like a bucking broncho. You don’t make as much distance, but you reduce your chance of getting hit. Every time the gun goes off you can feel the slug boring a hole in your back. You don’t realize it has already passed you when you hear the pistol crack. His gun empty, his shooting stops.

You feel like throwing a few slugs in his direction; but, well, you are in the wrong. You are safe now, it would only make matters worse if you hit him, and besides, he and his pistol and his dog have made enough noise already to rouse the neighborhood and you’re lucky if you can get out of the block without bumping into Mr. “John Law.”

You make a big detour and get downtown safely, so exhausted from the intense physical and mental concentration that you are barely able to drag one foot after the other. Yes, reader, I’ll admit you might go to your room and to bed and drift off into sweet, refreshing slumbers; but I never could do it. I always had to hunt up a hop joint and roll myself a few pills, “just for the good of my nerves.”

You are still a burglar, reader. You get up the next evening, put on a different suit and hat, and go out for your “breakfast.” You dismiss from your mind the incident of last night as lightly as a gambler would forget the loss of a few dollars. You remember the dog that recognized you in the hotel barroom years before, and with the thought that it would be well to keep out of this mastiff’s neighborhood you turn your mind to the business of the night. You take a long time to eat, looking through all the papers. You read about a burglar “shivering somewhere in his lair after escaping in a panic of fear from Mr. ——— and his mastiff and pistol.”

This makes you mad. You say to yourself: “What do those reporters expect of a man? Do they want him to shoot everybody in sight, cut the dog’s throat, carry out everything valuable, and burn the house down? Can’t they understand that the burglar’s first thought is the loot and his second thought is to get out of the house as quietly and quickly as possible without harming people when they wake up on him? And what madness for the householder to try to corner a burglar in the dark, prepared to resist capture but not to kill for loot. When he senses a burglar in his house, why can’t he say in a loud voice, ‘Is that you, Percy?’ and give him a chance to fade away quietly? He’ll do it. He knows there are plenty of other houses.”

You give it up, put these idle speculations out of your mind, and go out into the street. You have been busy locating “prospects.” Your thoughts turn to the most likely one. There’s the gambler that runs the poker games in back of the cigar store. He turns the game over to an assistant at twelve o’clock, takes the bankroll, and goes home. You decide to “take him home” to-night. You hang around till he comes out and get in behind him. You “tail” him to a genteel-looking place with a “private board” sign in a downstairs window. He lets himself in with a key. You are across the street; you wait a while and observe that a dark room on the second floor has been lighted. Your man is at the window pulling down its shade. You have his room located, and you go away to kill the next two hours.

Two o’clock; you are in the dining room downstairs. You were lucky enough to find an open window. You don’t open any doors here, you decide to retreat by the window, if necessary. This is a boarding house with a number of people in it, and you don’t have to creep around so carefully. A noise on the stairs or in the hall of a boarding house doesn’t mean much.

You go upstairs quickly and find a light in the hall. You put it out; not by pushing the button, but by unscrewing the globe a little. You are an expert; you don’t want any light; you don’t want any one to get a look at you in a lighted hallway. You prefer darkened rooms, because in the dark you have the best of the situation.