"I tell you, Mirandy! the man who conceived that brilliant notion is a heaven-born genius—a boon to mankind; and his name should go ringing down the corridors of time with those of such brilliant intellect as Watt, Morse, Edison, and other successful scientific investigators. You see, the least jar of the door will dislodge the pan, and the noise occasioned thereby will not only awaken the occupants of the room, but will also scare the burglar half to death, and perhaps the pan will strike him on the head and fracture his skull. It is a glorious scheme, and the fact that it was not utilized years ago is the most remarkable thing about it."
"Well," assented Mrs. B. in less sanguine tones, "it may be better than nothing, and it won't cost anything; and as Susan has gone out to spend the night with her sick sister, and we'll be all alone, I'll hunt up the pans now."
Accordingly, each inside door was crowned with a tin pan and left slightly ajar. Banford also thoughtfully placed a six-shooter under his pillow and stood a base-ball bat within easy reach.
"Now, Mirandy," he courageously observed, as they were preparing to retire, "if you are awakened by a noise during the night, don't scream and jump out of bed. Just lie still, or some o' the bullets I fire at the burglar may go through you and kill you. Let me wrestle with the intruder, and I'll soon make him regret that he had not postponed being born for a few centuries!"
Then they turned down the gas with a feeling of increased security, and were soon asleep. About half-past midnight they were awakened by a noise that sounded like a sharp clap of thunder, followed by a wail that almost chilled the marrow in their bones.
"Goodness!" screamed Mrs. B., in a voice swollen with terror, as she dived under the bed-clothes. "We'll be murdered in a minute. Shoot him, Lucullus! Quick—shoot him!"
Banford, after considerable nervous fumbling under the pillow, grasped his revolver with an unsteady hand and discharged its six barrels in rapid succession, but not with very gratifying results. One bullet shattered the mirror in the bureau; another plowed a furrow along the ceiling; another splintered the bed-post; a fourth perforated a portrait of his wife's mother; and the other two left their imprint on the walls.
"D-d-don't be fuf-fuf-frightened, M-mirandy," said Banford, encouragingly, his articulation sounding as if it had "collided" with an Arctic wave: "I gug-guess I've kik-kik-killed him. He'll not kik-kik-come here—"
At this juncture there was a noise in an adjoining room, as if a two-ton meteorite had crashed through a boiler-foundry, and Mrs. B. uttered a series of ear-piercing shrieks that would have scared the life out of any burglar.
"M-mirandy," stammered the frightened and demoralized Banford, grasping the base-ball bat and swinging it around with such reckless promiscuousness that he struck his terror-stricken wife on the head, "Mum-mirandy, the house is fuf-full of midnight mum-marauders, and we'll be bub-bub-butchered in cold bub-bub-blood! Save yourself and don't mum-mind about me!" And leaping out of bed, he sprang through a window on to the roof of a back building, and accidentally rolled off into the yard, fifteen feet below, just as another burglar-alarm went off with a clamor almost as deafening and harrowing as an amateur orchestra. Mrs. B., thinking she had been hit by the burglar, emitted a fresh outburst of shrieks, while her husband lay groaning in the back yard, with a sprained ankle and a frightful gash in his head.