for Sarah is very nervous about burglars, and makes me get up at the
slightest noise and go poking about. Only the fact that no burglar had
ever entered our flat at night had prevented what might have been a
serious accident to a burglar, for I made it a rule, when Sarah wakened
me on such occasions, to waste no time, but to go through the rooms as
hastily as possible and get back to bed; and at the speed I travelled I
might have bumped into a burglar in the dark and knocked him over, and
his head might have struck some hard object, causing concussion of the
brain; and as a burglar has a small brain a small amount of concussion
might have ruined it entirely. But as I am a slight man it might have
been my brain that got concussed. A father of a family has to think of
these things.
The nervousness of Sarah regarding burglars had led me in this way to
study the subject carefully, and my adoption of jet-black pajamas as
nightwear was not due to cowardice on my part. I properly reasoned that
if a burglar tried to shoot me while I was rushing around the house
after him in the darkness, a suit of black pajamas would somewhat spoil
his aim, and, not being able to see me, he would not shoot at all.
In this way I should save Sarah the nerve shock that would follow the
explosion of a pistol in the house. For Sarah was very much more afraid
of pistols than of burglars. I am sure there were only two reasons why
I had never killed a burglar with a pistol: one was that no burglar had
ever entered our flat, and the other was that I never had a pistol.
But I knew that one is much less protected in a suburb than in town,
and when I decided to build I studied the burglar protection matter most
carefully. I said nothing to Sarah about it, for fear it would upset her
nerves, but for months I considered every method that seemed to have
any merit, and that would avoid getting a burglar's blood--or
mine--spattered around on our new furnishings. I desired some method by
which I could finish up a burglar properly without having to leave my
bed, for although Sarah is brave enough in sending me out of bed to
catch a burglar, I knew she must suffer severe nerve strain during the
time I was wandering about in the dark. Her objection to explosives had
also to be considered, and I really had to exercise my brain more than
common before I hit upon what I may now consider the only perfect method
of handling burglars.
Several things coincided to suggest my method. One of these was Sarah's
foolish notion that our silver must, every night, be brought from
the dining-room and deposited under our bed. This I considered a most
foolhardy tempting of fate. It coaxed any burglar who ordinarily would
have quietly taken the silver from the dining-room and have then gone
away peacefully, to enter our room. The knowledge that I lay in bed
ready at any time to spring out upon him would make him prepare his
revolver, and his nervousness might make him shoot me, which would quite
upset Sarah's nerves. I told Sarah so, but she had a hereditary instinct
for bringing the silver to the bedroom, and insisted. I saw that in
the suburban house this, would be continued as “bringing the silver
upstairs,” and a trial of my carpet-saving stairs suggested to me my
burglar-defeating plan. I had the apparatus built into the house, and I
had the house planned to agree with the apparatus.
For several months after we moved into the house I had no burglars, but
I felt no fear of them in any event. I was prepared for them.
In order not to make Sarah nervous, I explained to her that my invention
of a silver-elevator was merely a time-saving device. From the top of
the dining-room sideboard I ran upright tracks through the ceiling to
the back of the hall above, and in these I placed a glass case, which
could be run up and down the tracks like a dumbwaiter. All our servant
had to do when she had washed the silver was to put it in the glass
case, and I had attached to the top of the case a stout steel cable
which ran to the ceiling of the hall above, over a pulley, and so to our
bedroom, which was at the front of the hall upstairs. By this means I
could, when I was in bed, pull the cable, and the glass case of silver
would rise to the second floor. Our bedroom door opened upon the hall,
and from the bed I could see the glass case; but in order that I might
be sure that the silver was there I put a small electric light in
the case and kept it burning all night. Sarah was delighted with this
arrangement, for in the morning all I had to do was to pay out the steel
cable and the silver would descend to the dining-room, and the maid
could have the table all set by the time breakfast was ready. Not once
did Sarah have a suspicion that all this was not merely a household
economy, but my burglar trap.
On the sixth of August, at two o'clock in the morning, Sarah awakened
me, and I immediately sat straight up in bed. There was an undoubtable
noise of sawing, and I knew at once that a burglar was entering our
home. Sarah was trembling, and I knew she was getting nervous, but I
ordered her to remain calm.
“Sarah,” I said, in a whisper, “be calm! There is not the least danger.
I have been expecting this for some time, and I only hope the burglar
has no dependent family or poor old mother to support. Whatever happens,
be calm and keep perfectly quiet.”
With that I released the steel cable from the head of my bed and let the
glass case full of silver slide noiselessly to the sideboard.
“Edgar!” whispered Sarah in agonized tones, “are you giving him our
silver?”
“Sarah!” I whispered sternly, “remember what I have just said. Be calm
and keep perfectly quiet.” And I would say no more.
In a very short time I heard the window below us open softly, and I
knew the burglar was entering the parlour from the side porch. I counted
twenty, which I had figured would be the time required for him to reach
the dining-room, and then, when I was sure he must have seen the silver
shining in the glass case, I slowly pulled on the steel cable and raised
case and silver to the hall above. Sarah began to whisper to me, but I
silenced her.
What I had expected happened. The burglar, seeing the silver rise
through the ceiling, left the dining-room and went into the hall. There,
from the foot of the stairs, he could see the case glowing in the hall
above, and without hesitation he mounted the stairs. As he reached the
top I had a good view of him, for he was silhouetted against the light
that glowed from the silver case. He was a most brutal looking fellow
of the prize-fighting type, but I almost laughed aloud when I saw his
build. He was short and chunky. As he stepped forward to grasp the
silver case, I let the steel cable run through my fingers, and the case
and its precious contents slid noiselessly down to the dining-room. For
only one instant the burglar seemed disconcerted, then he turned and ran
downstairs again.
This time I did not wait so long to draw up the silver. I hardly gave
him time to reach the dining-room door before I jerked the cable, and
the case was glowing in the upper hall. The burglar immediately stopped,
turned, and mounted the stairs, but just as he reached the top I let the
silver slide down again, and he had to turn and descend. Hardly had he
reached the bottom step before I had the silver once more in the upper
hall.
The burglar was a gritty fellow and was not to be so easily defeated.
With some word which I could not catch, but which I have no doubt was
profane, or at least vulgar, he dashed up the stairs, and just as his
hand touched the case I let the silver drop to the dining-room. I smiled
as I saw his next move. He carefully removed his coat and vest, rolled
up his sleeves, and took off his collar. This evidently meant that he
intended to get the silver if it took the whole night, and nothing could
have pleased me more. I lay in my comfortable bed fairly shaking with
suppressed laughter, and had to stuff a corner of a pillow in my mouth
to smother the sound of my mirth. I did not allow the least pity for the
unfortunate fellow to weaken my nerve.
A low, long screech from the hall told me that I had a man of uncommon
brain to contend with, for I knew the sound came from his hands drawing
along the banister, and that to husband his strength and to save time,
he was sliding down. But this did not disconcert me. It pleased me. The
quicker he went down, the oftener he would have to walk up.
For half an hour I played with him, giving him just time to get down
to the foot of the stairs before I raised the silver, and just time
to reach the top before I lowered it, and then I grew tired of the
sport--for it was nothing else to me--and decided to finish him off. I
was getting sleepy, but it was evident that the burglar was not, and
I was a little afraid I might fall asleep and thus defeat myself. The
burglar had that advantage because he was used to night work. So I
quickened my movements a little. When the burglar slid down I gave
him just time to see the silver rise through the ceiling, and when he
climbed the stairs I only allowed him to see it descend through the
floor. In this way I made him double his pace, and as I quickened my
movements I soon had him dashing up the stairs and sliding down again
as if for a wager. I did not give him a moment for rest, and he was soon
panting terribly and beginning to stumble; but with almost superhuman
nerve he kept up the chase. He was an unusually tough burglar.
But quick as he was I was always quicker, and a glimpse of the glowing
case was all I let him have at either end of his climb or slide. No
sooner was he down than it was up, and no sooner was the case up than
he was up after it. In this way I kept increasing his speed until it was
something terrific, and the whole house shook, like an automobile with
a very powerful motor. But still his speed increased. I saw then that
I had brought him to the place I had prepared for, where he had but one
object in life, and that was to beat the case up or down stairs; and as
I was now so sleepy I could hardly keep my eyes open, I did what I had
intended to do from the first. I lowered the case until it was exactly
between the ceiling of the dining-room and the floor of the hall
above--and turned out the electric light. I then tied the steel cable
securely to the head of my bed, turned over, and went to sleep, lulled
by the shaking of the house as the burglar dashed up and down the
stairs.
Just how long this continued I do not know, for my sleep was deep and
dreamless, but I should judge that the burglar ran himself to death
sometime between half-past three and a quarter after four. So great had
been his efforts that when I went to remove him I did not recognize him
at all. When I had seen him last in the glow of the glass silver case
he had been a stout, chunky fellow, and now his remains were those of
an emaciated man. He must have run off one hundred and twenty pounds of
flesh before he gave out.
Only one thing clouded my triumph. Our silver consisted of but half a
dozen each of knives, forks, and spoons, a butter knife, and a sugar
spoon, all plated, and worth probably five dollars, and to save this
I had made the burglar wear to rags a Wilton stair carpet worth
twenty-nine dollars. But I have now corrected this. I have bought fifty
dollars worth of silver.