“Well,” almost laughed Mr. Callaghan, “why don’t you do it? I’m waiting.”
“Because,” she answered, hesitatingly,--“because you’re standing in front of it.”
“Oh, am I?” answered Callaghan. “Then I’ll move away, I always like to be polite to ladies.” He moved away a few steps. She frowned a little bit. Then she said “Excuse me. Will you please move a little further away?” “Certainly,” he replied, “anything to oblige a real lady.”
She stepped toward the alarm, which Callaghan had not, until then, perceived, and stretched forth her hand.[[3]]
She was about to turn the little handle, when Callaghan said hastily: “Hold on a minute. Do you think that would be a nice thing to do?”
“Of course it would,” she answered.
“Just think about it a moment,” Callaghan continued; “if you did that, I’d be arrested, and sent up for fifteen or twenty years. Fifteen or twenty years, in a little cell, all by myself, with no one to talk to and nothing to do--except break stones for my health. Now, I don’t care anything about it myself, of course; I havn’t done you any wrong. I havn’t got away with the silver, and therefore, there isn’t any wrong done you, is there? I tried to, but you’ve got the best of me, and you’re an awfully brave little girl to do it, too. But just think of yourself during the next fifteen or twenty years, if you have me sent up. Every day you’ll be thinking about the poor fellow who’s doing time because you made him; and every night you’ll be lying awake, crying, because you made him suffer so much, for such a little thing; and every time the minister in your church says anything about forgiving your enemies, you’ll be thinking he means you; and,”
She broke in “I think I’ll let you go.” She said it very earnestly.
Callaghan laughed aloud. “That’s right,” he said, “I knew you would, for I knew you were a lady the minute I saw you. I didn’t mean what I said. Probably in a month you’d forget all about me. No one remembers a fellow who’s doing time, but the police and the detectives. I was just trying an experiment. Do you think I was afraid you’d call the police? Nonsense. Do you think I was afraid of your little revolver? Nonsense. I’ve been shot twice by real revolvers. If you’d tried to sound the burglar alarm, do you know what I’d have done? I’d have made a quick jump for you and I’d have my hands about your throat before you could have winked. If you’d fired the revolver, you’d missed me. Girls can’t shoot.”
He said this last almost contemptuously, but he was sorry a moment after, for he noticed that she was growing very white, and very frightened too. Nevertheless, he continued: “And after I’d got my hands about your neck, and you couldn’t scream or struggle or shoot, what do you suppose I’d have done?”