(_A Fragment from a Romance dedicated by Mr. Punch to Mr.
Diggle._)
"It is entirely your own fault," said the intruder, as he put another
silver tea-pot in his bag.
"I don't see that at all," replied the master of the house, moving
uneasily in his chair.
"Well, I have not time to argue with you," returned the other, as he
held up an enamelled ship of beautiful workmanship. "Dear me, this is
really very fine. I have never seen anything like it before! What is
it?"
"I got it at a sale in Derbyshire. I fancy it must be something like
the old Battersea enamel."
"Very fine! And solid silver, too! Well, in all my experience, and
I have been in the profession some twenty years, I have seen nothing
like it. Beautiful! Lovely!"
"If you had not tied my hands behind my back," explained the master
of the house, "I could show you, by lifting that lid, you would see
prettier subjects in the interior of the vessel."
"You certainly tempt me," answered the intruder, "to give you an
increased facility in moving. But it is against my rules. I always
work in a methodical manner, and one of my regulations is, before I
open the safe, I must bind the master of the house hand and foot in
an arm-chair. But what were we talking about?"
"You were saying," returned the other, with a sigh, "that it was my
own fault that I find myself in this painful, this ruinous position.
As a man of education I cannot see how you can advance such a
proposition."
"But that's the point. I am _not_ a man of education. I don't know
how to play the piano, and can scarcely manage a free-hand sketch of
a cathedral. My Greek is shaky, and I speak French and German with an
accent enough to drive a linguist mad. No, no, you take my word for
it--this little incident would never have happened had you behaved
wisely, and like a public-spirited citizen."
"What do you mean?" asked the householder.
"Why, this, that if you had paid more to the School Board, I would
have received a better education, and have never been a housebreaker.
As it is, I am only making up the difference between the sum you have
paid, and the sum you should have expended."
And the burglar, helping himself to another silver tea-pot, continued
his lucrative work.
* * * * *