Under the scullery-window lurked brutus and mephistopheles—­faces blackened, tools in hand—­ready to whip out a pane of said window and so penetrate the kitchen, and from the kitchen the pantry, where they made sure of a few spoons, and up the back stairs to the plate-chest.  They would be in the house even now but a circumstance delayed them—­a light was burning on the second floor.  Now it was contrary to their creed to enter a house where a light was burning, above all, if there was the least chance of that light being in a sitting-room.  Now they had been some hours watching the house and that light had been there all the time, therefore, argued mephistopheles, “It is not a farthing glim in a bedroom or we should have seen it lighted.  It is some one up.  We must wait till they roost.”

They waited and waited and waited.  Still the light burned.  They cursed the light.  No wonder.  Light seems the natural enemy of evil deeds.

They began to get bitter, and their bodies cold.  Even burglary becomes a bore when you have to wait too long idle out in the cold.

At last, at about half past two, the light went out.  Then, keenly listening, the two sons of darkness heard a movement in the house, and more than one door open and shut, and then the sound of feet going rapidly down the road toward Sydney.

“Why! it is a party only just broke up.  Lucky I would not work till the glim was out.”

“But I say, Bill—­he is at that corner—­the nobs must have passed close to him—­suppose they saw him.”

“He is not so green as let them see him.”

The next question was how long they should wait to let the inmates close their peepers.  All had been still and dark more than half an hour when the pair began to work. mephisto took out a large piece of putty and dabbed it on the middle of the pane; this putty he worked in the center up to a pyramid; this he held with his left hand, while with his right be took out his glazier’s diamond and cut the pane all round the edges.  By the hold the putty gave him, he prevented the pane from falling inside the house and making a noise, and finally whipped it out clean and handed it to brutus.  A moment more the two men were in the scullery, thence into the kitchen through a door which they found open; in the kitchen were two doors—­trying one they found it open into a larder.  Here casting the light of his dark lantern round, brutus discovered some cold fowl and a ham; they took these into the kitchen, and somewhat coolly took out their knives and ate a hasty but hearty supper.  Their way of hacking the ham was as lawless as all the rest.  They then took off their shoes and dropped them outside the scullery window, and now the serious part of the game began.  Creeping like cats, they reached the pantry, and sure enough found more than a dozen silver spoons and forks of different sizes that had been recently used.  These they put into a small bag, and mephisto went back through the scullery into the back garden and hid these spoons in a bush.  “Then, if we should be interrupted, we can come back for them.”