as Canal Street, and kept on in a northwesterly direction for half a mile farther.  It was a dark, cool, and blustering night, such as the New Englanders are very apt to have on the second of April.  The wind blew violently down the open country, shaking the scattered trees as if it meant to wake them instantly out of their winter’s slumber, and screeching in the murky distances like a tomcat of the housetops, or rather like a continent of tomcats.  The Doctor lost his hat, chased it a few rods, and then gave it up, lest he should miss his burglars.  Once I halted and watched, thinking that I saw two or three dark shapes dogging us not far behind, but concluded that I had been deceived by the black-art of magical Night, and hastened on after my crazy comrades.  Presently Riley stopped, pointed to a dark mass on our right which seemed about large enough to be a story-and-a-half cottage, and whispered, “Here we are, brethren.”

“No doubt about that,” said I.  “But what the mischief is to come of it?”

“Oh! let’s go back and call the police,” urged the baker, in a tremulous gurgle.

“Too late!” returned Riley.  “It is given to me to see the burglars.  They are inside.  They are taking the silver out of the closet.  There will be murder in five minutes.”

“If there must be murder, why, of course we ought to have a hand in it,” I suggested.  “Our motives at least will be good.”

“Right!” said Riley.  “Come on, brethren!  We must prove our faith by our works.”

But the baker hung back in a most dough-faced fashion, while the butcher and the candlestick-maker encouraged him in his cowardice.  At last it was agreed that this unheroic trio should wait in the yard as a reserve, while Riley, the Doctor, and I went in to worry the burglars.  Leaving the weaker brethren in a clump of evergreen shrubbery, we, the forlorn-hope, stole around the house to get at a back-door which Prophet Riley had plainly seen in his dream, and which he foretold us we should find unlocked.  I was not much amazed to discover a back-door, inasmuch as most houses have one, but I really was surprised to learn that it was unfastened.  My astonishment at this circumstance, however, was over-balanced by my alarm at finding that the Doctor still persisted in his intention of entering; for I had hoped that at the last moment his faith would give way, and let him slide down from the elevation of his ridiculous and reckless purpose.

“But you are not really going in?” I whispered, jerking at his coat-tails.

“Certainly,” he replied.  “The robbers are surely there.  The door was unlocked.”

“Mere carelessness of the servants.  Stop!  Come back!  Nonsense!  Madness!  You’ll get into a scrape.  Respectable family.  Good gracious, what a pack of fools!”