“The expert answered the usual call, and explained that it was a ’False alarm.’  Said it was easily fixed.  So he overhauled the nursery window, charged a remunerative figure for it, and departed.

“What we suffered from false alarms for the next three years no stylographic pen can describe.  During the next three months I always flew with my gun to the room indicated, and the coachman always sallied forth with his battery to support me.  But there was never anything to shoot at—­windows all tight and secure.  We always sent down for the expert next day, and he fixed those particular windows so they would keep quiet a week or so, and always remembered to send us a bill about like this: 

Wire ............................$2.15
Nipple...........................  .75
Two hours’ labor ................ 1.50
Wax..............................  .47
Tape.............................  .34
Screws...........................  .15
Recharging battery ..............  .98
Three hours’ labor .............. 2.25
String...........................  .02
Lard ............................  .66
Pond’s Extract .................. 1.25
Springs at 50.................... 2.00
Railroad fares................... 7.25

“At length a perfectly natural thing came about—­after we had answered three or four hundred false alarms—­to wit, we stopped answering them.  Yes, I simply rose up calmly, when slammed across the house by the alarm, calmly inspected the annunciator, took note of the room indicated; and then calmly disconnected that room from the alarm, and went back to bed as if nothing had happened.  Moreover, I left that room off permanently, and did not send for the expert.  Well, it goes without saying that in the course of time all the rooms were taken off, and the entire machine was out of service.

“It was at this unprotected time that the heaviest calamity of all happened.  The burglars walked in one night and carried off the burglar alarm! yes, sir, every hide and hair of it:  ripped it out, tooth and nail; springs, bells, gongs, battery, and all; they took a hundred and fifty miles of copper wire; they just cleaned her out, bag and baggage, and never left us a vestige of her to swear at—­swear by, I mean.

“We had a time of it to get her back; but we accomplished it finally, for money.  The alarm firm said that what we needed now was to have her put in right—­with their new patent springs in the windows to make false alarms impossible, and their new patent clock attached to take off and put on the alarm morning and night without human assistance.  That seemed a good scheme.  They promised to have the whole thing finished in ten days.  They began work, and we left for the summer.  They worked a couple of days; then they left for the summer.  After which the burglars moved in, and began their summer vacation.  When we returned in the fall, the house was as empty as a beer closet in premises where painters have been at work.  We refurnished, and then sent down to hurry up the expert.  He came up and finished the job, and said:  ’Now this clock is set to put on the alarm every night at 10, and take it off every morning at 5:45.  All you’ve got to do is to wind her up every week, and then leave her alone —­she will take care of the alarm herself.’