“Did you catch the burglar?” I inquired, as the policeman started to wipe his lips and look up at the sky.
“You bet we did. He was easy caught. In fact, he and the housemaid were—well, this is a queer world.
SUCH A SCENE
I never saw. The girl wept, implored, prayed and finally went into a fit. The “burglar” got down on his knees and begged for mercy, and the lawyer stormed and swore and finally laughed. The whole house was roused, and some of the women came in and cared for the wretched girl.”
“Did you arrest the fellow?”
“No, the lawyer was satisfied with kicking the fellow into the street, and bundling the girl after him on the next morning, and that was the whole of it. It turned out that he had been in the habit of visiting her in this way for months, and he would not have been caught that time had it not been for the bright moonlight. He might have known better, but when a fellow makes up his mind to see his girl he will undergo any risk no matter what it is. I often meet him, and he looks mighty sheepish, I can tell you. See that high door-step?”
“Which, this one?” “Yes.”
“Well, one frightfully cold night last winter I sat down on that door-step a moment to make an entry in my book. I had hardly seated myself when
I THOUGHT I HEARD BREATHING.
I was puzzled for a moment, and looked all around, but couldn’t make out where the sound came from. Finally I decided it was under the door-step. I got down, reached under and pulled out two little children, a boy and a girl, half naked and nearly frozen. I took them to the station, where we thawed them out and saved their lives. They had been put out half-dressed by their drunken step-father, the poor little things had crept under the door-step for shelter, and if I had not found them when I did they would have been frozen to death as sure as fate. See that lane?”