The burglar wiped his hands on the tablecloth and arose with a yawn.

“Well, let’s get through with it,” he said.  “God bless you, my little boy! you have saved a man from committing a crime this night.  Bessie shall pray for you as soon as I get home and give her her orders.  I shall never burglarize another house—­at least not until the June magazines are out.  It’ll be your little sister’s turn then to run in on me while I am abstracting the U. S. 4 per cent. from the tea urn and buy me off with her coral necklace and a falsetto kiss.”

“You haven’t got all the kicks coming to you,” sighed Tommy, crawling out of his chair.  “Think of the sleep I’m losing.  But it’s tough on both of us, old man.  I wish you could get out of the story and really rob somebody.  Maybe you’ll have the chance if they dramatize us.”

“Never!” said the burglar, gloomily.  “Between the box office and my better impulses that your leading juveniles are supposed to awaken and the magazines that pay on publication, I guess I’ll always be broke.”

“I’m sorry,” said Tommy, sympathetically.  “But I can’t help myself any more than you can.  It’s one of the canons of household fiction that no burglar shall be successful.  The burglar must be foiled by a kid like me, or by a young lady heroine, or at the last moment by his old pal, Red Mike, who recognizes the house as one in which he used to be the coachman.  You have got the worst end of it in any kind of a story.”

“Well, I suppose I must be clearing out now,” said the burglar, taking up his lantern and bracebit.

“You have to take the rest of this chicken and the bottle of wine with you for Bessie and her mother,” said Tommy, calmly.

“But confound it,” exclaimed the burglar, in an annoyed tone, “they don’t want it.  I’ve got five cases of Chateau de Beychsvelle at home that was bottled in 1853.  That claret of yours is corked.  And you couldn’t get either of them to look at a chicken unless it was stewed in champagne.  You know, after I get out of the story I don’t have so many limitations.  I make a turn now and then.”

“Yes, but you must take them,” said Tommy, loading his arms with the bundles.

“Bless you, young master!” recited the burglar, obedient.  “Second-Story Saul will never forget you.  And now hurry and let me out, kid.  Our 2,000 words must be nearly up.”

Tommy led the way through the hall toward the front door.  Suddenly the burglar stopped and called to him softly:  “Ain’t there a cop out there in front somewhere sparking the girl?”

“Yes,” said Tommy, “but what—­”

“I’m afraid he’ll catch me,” said the burglar.  “You mustn’t forget that this is fiction.”

“Great head!” said Tommy, turning.  “Come out by the back door.”

XX

A CHAPARRAL CHRISTMAS GIFT

The original cause of the trouble was about twenty years in growing.