IN SPITE of the exciting events of the night Tom fell asleep and slept soundly till morning. He had done his duty as a matter of course and it did not occur to him that he had done anything heroic till he read a paragraph in the paper the next day giving an account of the affair, in which he was spoken of in the most complimentary terms. The paragraph was headed “A Young Hero.”
It served as an excellent advertisement. The following day he had three times the number of visitors and twice as large sales as on any preceding one. In fact he was kept so hard at work that he was delighted about the middle of the afternoon to see his employer walk into the shop.
“I am glad to see you back, Mr. Burton,” said Tom.
“And I am glad to be back,” said his employer. “But what is all this I hear, Tom, about an attempted burglary?”
“Did you see the paragraph in the morning’s paper, sir?”
“Yes. I see you are reported to have acted like a young hero.”
Tom smiled.
“I didn’t know that I had done anything heroic till I read it in the paper,” he said.
“I like your modesty, Tom,” said Mr. Burton approvingly. “If the account is correct, however, I must say that you showed a good deal of pluck. That was a capital stratagem by which you trapped him.”