N. 
 
 &**&.
 
 " V 
 
 " 
 
 *L - ~ 
 
 JC^.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Mrs & C. Anderson
 
 bp 
 
 THE GATES AJAR, ycxh Thousand. i6mo, $1.50. 
 BEYOND THE GATES. 24thTbousand. 16010,51.15. 
 MEN. WOMEN, AND GHOSTS. Short Stories. i6mo, 
 
 *i SO- 
 HEDGED IN. i6mo, *i.so. 
 THE SILENT PARTNER. i6mo, $1.50. 
 THE STORY OF AVIS. i6mo, $1.50. 
 SEALED ORDERS, and other Stories. 16010, $1.50. 
 FRIENDS: A Duet, ifcmo, $1.25. 
 DOCTOR ZAY. i6mo, $1.15. 
 
 The above nine volumes, uniform, f 13.50. 
 AN OLD MAID'S PARADISE. i6mo, paper, 50 cents. 
 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. i6mo, paper, 50 cents. 
 THE TROTTY BOOK. For Young Folks. Illustrated. 
 
 Small 410, $1.25. 
 TROTTY'S WEDDING TOUR AND STORY BOOK. 
 
 Illustrated. Small 410, $1.25. 
 WHAT TO WEAR? i6rao.Ji.oo. 
 POETIC STUDIES. Square i6mo, $1.50. 
 SONGS OF THE SILENT WORLD, and other Poems. 
 
 With Portrait, i6mo, gilt top, #1.25. 
 THE MADONNA OF THE TUBS. Fully illustrated. 
 
 larno, $ 1.50. 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK.
 
 BURGLARS IN PARADISE 
 
 BY 
 
 ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 STfce fitoerside Pve0, <TambriD0e 
 1887
 
 Copyright, 1888, 
 Br ELIZABETH STUART 1> HELPS. 
 
 AU right* reserved. 
 
 The Rirrrriiie Prttt, Cambrijet f 
 Electrotyped and Printed by II. 0. Hougbtoa t Co.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. THE RTTMOR 5 
 
 II. THE SCARE 22 
 
 III. GOOD FAMILY HORSES 40 
 
 IV. THE LADY OF SHALOTT ..... 62 
 V. FEE-FI-FUM AND I. O. U .81 
 
 VI. THE BURGLARY 99 
 
 VII. MR. PUSHETT 117 
 
 VIII. THE STATE WILL PROTECT 137 
 
 IX. MESSRS. HIDE AND SEEK 155 
 
 X. JCDAS JOHNS 172 
 
 XI. WHAT is CALLED FRIENDSHIP .... 190 
 XII. RECEIPTED BILLS . . 205 
 
 34209^
 
 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 THE RUMOR. 
 
 IF it had not been for that horse 
 
 But this requires explanation. 
 
 Some time ago, I had the pleasure of re 
 cording the experience of a single and singu 
 lar lady, who built a house and lived in it. 
 To any reader by chance acquainted with 
 those records no introductory words will now 
 be needed. To such as are unfamiliar with 
 the annals of The Old Maid's Paradise " it 
 may be necessary to say that they concerned 
 the fortunes of a family of two, mistress 
 and maid. I mistake ; it was a family of 
 three, mistress, maid, and dog. They were 
 known to the public respectively as Corona,
 
 6 BURGLARS IN PARADIS11 
 
 Puella Virginia (short, Puelvir), and Matthew 
 Launcelot. 
 
 Corona's house was a matched-board cot 
 tage, situated, in summer, in the town of 
 Fairharbor, on the eea-coast. As Corona 
 spent the winters with her brother's family, 
 she carried away the impression that her 
 house was not situated anywhere from Octo 
 ber to June. The poor, desolate, shuttered 
 thing, shivering down there on the cliffs in 
 the winter nor' westers, seemed to her to be 
 blotted off the map by the first snow-storm, 
 along with the wild roses and the golden-rod 
 and the dandelion ghosts, and the sense of 
 having one's own way, and paying the unxvr 
 for the privilege. Corona did not like to 
 think about her house when she was out of 
 it ; it seemed like the corpse of a house, like 
 an unburied friend : it made her sentimental. 
 Her house was the only thing that she was 
 known to be sentimental about. 
 
 She hurried back to it for that second sea 
 son whose history it will be the effort of these 
 columns to portray, with a bounding heart.
 
 THE RUMOR. 7 
 
 She had passed the bounding years. Life 
 had begun to take steady paces. She had 
 some time since ceased to expect things, and 
 when they came they met her like friends in 
 a crowd : a quick hand on the arm, a kin 
 dling eye, a sensitive cry, " Why, you ! " 
 and thus she had her surprise for her 
 pains, the twofold pleasure of not hoping, the 
 ardent comfort that comes from asking noth 
 ing of life and finding something when you 
 don't look for it. Corona was a person of 
 " ways." This was one of her ways ; and 
 she found it a very good one. 
 
 So, when she felt that old, patiently put-by 
 pull at the arterial circulation, which comes 
 of deeply wishing for a thing that is really 
 going to happen, Corona experienced some 
 curiosity over the psychological phenomenon. 
 
 " I did not expect to care so much," she 
 said to Puelvir, as they jounced democratic 
 ally over the Pairharbor streets in the yellow 
 omnibus. Fairharbor economizes her streets 
 as a public gymnasium. The great ledges, 
 worn by the great fish teams, and innocent of
 
 8 BURGLARS IN PARA DISK. 
 
 Mr. McAdam's miniafefative palliations, exer 
 cise the passengers obviously. Matthew Laun- 
 celot, in particular, being of so much less 
 weight than either of his natural protectors, 
 performed the flying trapeze and double bar 
 from one end of the narrow, dingy red velvet 
 cushions to the other, at irregular intervals. 
 with an air of wounded dignity which lent 
 pathos to the occasion. 
 
 " Here, I '11 hold ye, if I Ve got to," said 
 Puelvir. 
 
 "Did you speak to me?" asked Corona. 
 dreamily. 
 
 Puelvir had not noticed the psychological 
 problem. Whether it were above her or be 
 neath her. who could say? Mistress and 
 maid were fond of each other ; and Corona 
 was used to these little lapses in the line of 
 human sympathy which come of solitary liv 
 ing with some one who is " different. " She 
 had a high regard for Puelvir, and watched 
 her affectionately as she gathered Matthew 
 Launcelot into her generous bosom. 
 
 " There, there ! " said Puelvir. " Do set 
 awhile, if there 's any set in you ! "
 
 THE RUMOR. 9 
 
 "He never kisses you," observed Corona. 
 " And he 's so fond of you, too ! I wonder 
 at it." 
 
 " Kisses me ! " cried Puelvir. " Kisses 
 me ! Why, I 'd as lief be kissed by live men- 
 folks (for aught I know) as by dogs. I knew 
 a girl once set in a man's lap while they was 
 keepin' company. I says to her, ' I don't see 
 what you want to do it FOR. I should as 
 soon think of goin' an' settin' on the mantel 
 piece ! ' I 've trained him, you better be 
 lieve," added Puelvir. " I used to snap his 
 nose every time he tried it. If that don't 
 work, I sprinkle him with a little vinegar. 
 It 's excellent. They soon get over it." 
 
 " Who get over it ? " asked Corona, still 
 in her dream. Pronouns were never Puelvir's 
 strong point. It took a while to get used to 
 them. 
 
 " How natural it dooz look down here ! " 
 observed Puelvir, as the omnibus bobbed and 
 cannonaded through the crooked streets, past 
 the dreary wharves, by the pungent fish- 
 flakes, where the salt cod dried in the sun
 
 10 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 and swallowed the dust ; down past widening 
 glints of cleanness, blueness, coolness, and so, 
 at last, to the bright burst of the sea. " I al- 
 wez kinder learn to like a place by the signs ; 
 don't you, Miss Corona ? I know 'em by 
 heart down here. There 's the Labrador Bak 
 ery ! See? With that beautiful view lit- 
 painted on his cart. Don't you remember ? 
 She was an Injun woman settin' on a nice- 
 berg ; and he asked a cent apiece more for 
 his muffins because he had to pay that artist 
 sech a price. He told me so. There 's one 
 sign I feel different about from any in Fair- 
 harbor. It's * T. II. Trader. Boxes <tn<l 
 Shooks.' I could n't tell why, but it gives 
 me such a feeling. I never feel to home till 
 I see it. It's comin' this minute. See it? 
 Driving on that there cross-street ? * T. II. 
 Trader. Boxes and Shooks* What are 
 shocks, Miss Corona ? You 've lived here 
 longer 'n I have." 
 
 Corona shook her head. She had spent 
 six summers in Fairharbor. Six hundred 
 times had she perused the legend : " T. H.
 
 THE RUMOR. 11 
 
 Trader. Boxes and Shooks" Never had 
 she organized an inquiry as to the nature or 
 purpose of a shook. 
 
 " A modern writer has said women have 
 no intellectual initiative, Puelvir." 
 
 "Ma'am?" said Puelvir. 
 
 As the two women approached their home 
 with this stimulating conversational prelude, 
 Corona's heart sank a little. 
 
 " Shall I lower to her level day by day ? " 
 she thought. But she was comforted by some 
 fellow-passengers in the omnibus. They 
 were married people ; they, too, were coming 
 to their summer home by the inspired and in 
 spiring sea ; they, too, had talked in the om 
 nibus, and this was the literal transcript of 
 their wedded conversation : 
 
 (She.) " Harry, where 's my shawl-strap ? 
 You've left it behind!" 
 
 (He.) "It is under your feet, my dear. 
 You said you wanted a footstool, the omnibus 
 jolted so." 
 
 " I '11 never ride in this omnibus again, if 
 I live to get out of it ! Now, Harry, where 
 is my sun-umbrella ? "
 
 12 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 " Safely strapped up with my cane, Jenny." 
 
 " Well, anyway, you've broken the pulsa- 
 tilla bottle. I knew you would when you sit 
 down so hard. I see it leaking out of your 
 coat pocket now. I shall u< r< r rct to slccj 
 without it, and I shall lure to send you back 
 to town to get some more." 
 
 (He, grimly, under his mustache.) " I 
 don't doubt you will ! " 
 
 " What did you say, sir ? " 
 
 (He, promptly.) " I did n't say anything." 
 
 " I'm sure you did. You can't deny it." 
 
 " I do deny it. We have n't either of us 
 said anything since we started. Do keep 
 still. That lady overhears." 
 
 " I don't care who hears. I insist upon 
 knowing. Why, here 's the pulsatilla in my 
 hand-bag, after all ! " 
 
 Silence succeeded. 
 
 (She, with an air of originality.) " How 
 this omnibus does rattle ! " 
 
 (He, absently.) " Oh ! very." 
 
 " Harry ! What a hot day it is ! " 
 
 (He, patiently.) " Quite hot."
 
 THE RUMOR. 13 
 
 (She.) " I 'm tired to death ! " 
 (He.) " You have your pulsatilla." 
 t( Well, / sha'n't sit down on it and break 
 it, at any rate ! " This with the air of one 
 who has made a strong moral point. 
 
 " Here we be," said Puella Virginia at last. 
 " He 's left my hogshead bottom up'ards. 
 Whatever I 'in to do for water come o' Mon 
 day, and the clothes-post 's blowed down, and 
 the spare-room blind 's off. The roof needs 
 paintin'. I '11 bet it leaks. The coal-bin ain't 
 built, and all Mis' Rowin's chickens are settin* 
 on your front piazza. But, thanks to mercy, 
 she 's washed them windows ! and, as for me, 
 I've got home" 
 
 The maid gave a happy, boisterous sigh 
 that went to the mistress's heart. It touched 
 her to have the dependent forget her depend 
 ence. And that all the home she had to offer, 
 to the only creature to whom she might offer 
 it, should be dear to that other solitary wo 
 man too, this was a pleasure. Matched 
 board walls and a cook were all Corona had. 
 But it is the eternal heimlichkeit that draws 
 us on.
 
 14 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 " I 'm glad to have you happy, Puelvir 
 dear," the mistress said. She had never called 
 Puelvir Dear before. If she was served the 
 less loyally, or with the less respect for it 
 thereafter, these records know it not. 
 
 She flung down her baggage, anyhow, with 
 the old assured confidence in Puelvir's mater 
 nal capacity for " picking up," and wandered 
 through the house with a consciousness of 
 
 D 
 
 girlish abandonment to the sensations of the 
 moment. To speak of wandering through a 
 house twenty feet cube in proportions may be 
 subject to criticism in matter of style ; but 
 there are spaces and vistas in one's own home 
 not measurable by the carpenter's scale. How 
 dear it was ! The silence and chill frozen 
 there in layers of solitude all the patient win 
 ter melted at the first footfall of love. It 
 was a warm day of early June ; and the sun 
 lay at full-tide through the afternoon windows 
 of the gray parlor. All the familiar trifles 
 seemed to bask in the yellow flood consciously. 
 They glanced at her with dumb eyes, that 
 tried to say, " We have missed you." In a
 
 THE RUMOR. 15 
 
 world like this, is it not something to be 
 missed even by a picture ? Corona's heart 
 went out to the photographs and the carmine 
 ribbons and the frieze of cardinal flowers on 
 the wall ; and she caressed the silver-gray 
 curtains with a tender shake. 
 
 Through the open door the Harbor looked 
 in radiantly. A few small sails leaned south 
 westerly, bent on small errands in the summer 
 afternoon. The opposite shore had the gentle 
 colors of the late seashore spring ; even the 
 hoary gray of the reefs seemed younger than 
 its wont, and the greens were all sensitive still. 
 The water and the sky were bold and happy 
 blue. Down on the beach the traces of the 
 winter storms, cut in gorges, made black rifts 
 on the gray crescent ; and the weeds were 
 massed in rich bronze heaps at the hither end 
 of the curve. The fishermen's salt-barrels 
 and lobster-traps, piled against the stone wall, 
 gave the definite linear foreground that artists 
 love. The rolling downs, with their grazing 
 cattle, made the eastward horizon gracious to 
 the eye. These, and the beach, the cliffs, the
 
 16 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 meadow, and the road among the willows, were 
 innocent yet of " summer people.'' Corona 
 had it all to h -r-^-lf. The double throb of 
 the seen and tin- unseen breakers from the 
 Harbor and the outer shore*. 1" ;t powerfully. 
 
 " How dear you are ! " she said. 
 
 Her neighbors, Heaven bless the neigh 
 bors, it seemed, had missed her, too. Tin- 
 fires were lighted and laid. The tea-table 
 was set. Somebody had sent hot rolls. Some 
 body else asked leave to bring a pie. Flow 
 ers were all over the house. Tiny garden- 
 patches, walled about with shells after the 
 Fairharbor fashion, had been built by un 
 known hands, and planted with the affection 
 ate but unfortunate seeds that alwavs per 
 ished during infancy in any garden of Co 
 rona's. Some one had filled an old dory with 
 nasturtiums; she lay stranded upon tl 
 in the sheltered corner by the hog>head. look 
 ing as much like a lettuce-garden and as little 
 like a boat as was practicable. Zero, in the 
 overflow of his welcome, had brought a pail 
 of water. Zero, it will be remembered, or
 
 THE RUMOR. 17 
 
 should be said, was the boy who went to the 
 post-office ; and a pail of fresh water is the 
 final luxury of civilization in Fairharbor. Co 
 rona shut herself alone into the little gray 
 parlor, and collected her over-sensitive thought 
 for x those first few minutes. Only a matched 
 board cottage, and Puelvir, and the ocean, 
 and the neighbors, and Matthew Launcelot 
 and yet, how happy, how happy a thing is a 
 human home ! Her eyes filled. What, then, 
 would it be, to be people who have more than 
 that ? What must it be like, to come home 
 to that other kind of blessedness, the real 
 homelikeness ? 
 
 A cold nose and a pink tongue profusely 
 interrupted this dangerous and uncharacteris 
 tic sortie of the imagination. Matthew Laun 
 celot, alert to what he perceived to be the un 
 usual, crept up into her arms, and made him 
 self as agreeable as Nature had permitted 
 him to be. Matthew Launcelot knew that he 
 had effective eyes. He looked at her senti 
 mentally and sadly, as who would say, " But 
 you have me."
 
 18 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 " Bless you, yes ! " said Corona, contritely. 
 She caressed the dog, as if she would apolo 
 gize to him. Nobody understood her better 
 than Matthew Launcelot. If the wing of a 
 flying vision had brushed her for that instant ; 
 if the thing that had been and the thing that 
 was not to be had met and cried out against 
 each other upon her threshold, and in her 
 strong despite, who but Matthew Launcelot 
 need know? 
 
 " Somethin' 's happened," said Puelvir, ap 
 pearing at the door suddenly. 
 
 " Very well, Puelvir. What, for instance? " 
 
 " Mis' Rowin 's been in. She told me to 
 prepare you. I said I would. She thought 
 she would n't ask for you to-night, you 'd be 
 so upset by it. I told her it was very thought 
 ful in her." 
 
 " If her thoughtf ulness extended What 
 is it that you have to prepare me for, Puel 
 vir?" 
 
 " Burglars," said Puelvir, with grim tri 
 umph. 
 
 " Ah ? " listlessly from her mistress.
 
 THE RUMOR. 19 
 
 " They 're all round the neighborhood. 
 They Ve stole Mis' Rowin's best nigh'gownd, 
 and Mr. Jacobses old harness, and Tommy 
 Thurston's Bantam rooster. They 're very 
 dangerous men. There 's five of 'em." 
 
 " They must be dangerous men, such 
 deadly depredations. Is this all you had to 
 prepare me for, Puelvir ? " 
 
 " Well, no 'm. It hain't. They Ve ben 
 here. They 've broke in." 
 
 " Broken in ! To my house ! Burglars ! 
 Impossible, Puelvir. The shutters " 
 
 " Well, yes 'in. Thanks to mercy, they 
 did n't get so very far. They found they 
 was locked out by that there bronze bolt of 
 your'n. They got in the little wood-shed 
 window by the pantry. He seems to have been 
 a large feller, and, nigh 's we can make out, 
 he stuck. Anyways he did n't get no farther ; 
 but she told me to break it to you gently, for 
 she was afraid it would be a shock to you. He 
 took all he could lay hands on, and dared." 
 
 " I thought you said there were five of 
 them."
 
 20 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 " I never said there was five squoze in that 
 there two-foot window," replied Pnelvir lof 
 tily. " But it 's an awful thing to think of, 
 come to think on 't. And they took " 
 
 " What did they steal, Puelvir ? What is 
 the amount of my loss? Tell me the worst 
 at once ! " 
 
 " Well, I did n't say 's they took so much," 
 answered Puelvir, in a disappointed tone. 
 " But they 're very dangerous men. And 
 they 've took the hatchet." 
 
 "The hatchet?" 
 
 " Yes, the hatchet howsomever they ever 
 found it. When you and me wanted it, it 
 was always at the bottom of the wood-pile, 
 where he 'd piled his wood onto it. / never 
 found the hatchet in this house." 
 
 " Is that the extent of my losses, Puel 
 vir?" 
 
 " Well, pretty much. They 've got the 
 h<itchet. And the carving-knife, the one 
 Zero used on the kindlin'. I 'd like to see 
 'em cut that Bantam rooster with it ! And 
 they took the close-pins, and the gimlet, and
 
 THE RUMOR. 21 
 
 a paper of tacks, and the hatchet. That 's 
 about all, nigh 's Mis' Rowin can tell. She 
 feels very bad about it. She said the neigh 
 bors would a set up nights to watch your 
 house. She hoped you 'd bear up under the 
 shock. She wanted to know if we did n't 
 want Zero to come over here and sleep ; but 
 I told her I guessed you 'n me had tried that 
 for one while." 
 
 " I think we must get along without Zero," 
 said Corona. " But it is an unpleasant 
 thought, five of them getting in such very 
 little windows in a person's house. I will 
 think the matter over, Puelvir, and talk with 
 you presently." 
 
 So Corona went out on the piazza to think 
 the burglars over. Mrs. Rowin's hens were 
 sitting there comfortably. They all arose 
 and greeted her in a very hospitable manner, 
 and walked away one by one, with an air of 
 consideration for her feelings which made it 
 impossible to " shoo " them. 
 
 As to that horse but this requires time.
 
 IL 
 
 THE SCARE. 
 
 " PUELVIR," said her mistress, that even 
 ing, when the two women prepared to face 
 the first night alone, in a neighborhood 
 known to be haunted by house-breakers, 
 " Puelvir, is Zero as deaf as he used to be ? " 
 
 " Deefer," said Puelvir, laconically. 
 
 " Then I really don't think he would help 
 us any ; do you ? We must make up our 
 minds to protect ourselves. I think we can ; 
 don't you, Puelvir ? " 
 
 " I 've nailed the ironin' - board and the 
 step-ladder and the big soap-stone and two 
 flat-irons agen the shed window. I 'd like to 
 see 'em get in there." 
 
 11 That 's an excellent plan, Puelvir. I 've 
 been thinking it over. My idea was that 
 we must really lock up. I 've never paid
 
 THE SCARE. 23 
 
 much attention to the subject. We will make 
 a point of it. I think we 'd better begin 
 early." 
 
 " I bet I know what they took the hatchet 
 for, Miss Corona. I 've been thinkin' about 
 it." 
 
 " And what was it for, Puelvir ? " 
 
 " To carve Tommy's rooster with ; that 's 
 what they wanted of it. Depend on 't, they 
 took your carvin'-knife first ; 'n when they 
 found what they 'd got in that knife let 
 alon' the rooster they come back for the 
 hatchet." 
 
 " Yes," replied Corona, pensively. " Mr. 
 Tom and Mr. Sinuous used to say it was a 
 little dull." 
 
 Corona referred to the only gentlemen 
 guests whom the Old Maid's Paradise had 
 yet known. Tom was her brother, and Mr. 
 Sinuous may be recalled as the young man 
 from Mt. Desert, who had played the Ser 
 pent in this feminine Eden, and removed a 
 preferred friend from Corona's hearth-stone. 
 
 " We will lock up," repeated Corona. " We
 
 24 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 will lock up very much. I think, with my 
 pistol " 
 
 Puelvir interrupted by an audible and sig 
 nificant, but smothered, titter. Corona re 
 garded her inquiringly, to see if this expressed 
 any disrespect toward the pistol. But Puelvir 
 vouchsafed no explanation. 
 
 4< And then, with Matthew Launcelot " 
 
 " Matthew Launc-elot ! " cried Puelvir. 
 
 " Certainly," replied the mistress, with some 
 dignity. " He was given to me for a watch 
 dog, Puelvir. I have no doubt that if Mat 
 thew Launcelot had been here, we should 
 have our hatchet now, and that paper of 
 tacks, too." 
 
 " Mebbe we should," said Puelvir, dis 
 creetly and obscurely. " Will ye leave me 
 to lock up behind, and you lock up before ? 
 I 'd like to see 'em," added Puelvir. " I 'd 
 jest like to see 'em git into this house, and 
 me in it ! " 
 
 Judging from Puelvir's kindling counte 
 nance, this remark might be taken as literally 
 true.
 
 THE SCARE. 25 
 
 The two women made solemn business of 
 it, barricading the lonely house that night. 
 At moments Corona thought of Tom, and of 
 Susy and the baby sleeping in his big pro 
 tection. But she patted Matthew Launcelot, 
 and cleaned her pistol, and drew her bolts, 
 and said her prayers, and kept a stout heart, 
 and trusted in Puelvir and Providence, 
 much in the order of their going through this 
 sentence. 
 
 Their preparations for the night were fear 
 fully and wonderfully made. The defenses 
 of the Old Maid's Paradise being of the most 
 primitive nature, feminine ingenuity was put 
 to the tests of despair. When Corona had 
 come to the end of such locks and bolts as 
 the house possessed, she drew upon her inven 
 tion with a naivete which would have been re 
 freshing to the intellect of the burglar ; but 
 it is one of the few advantages left us by our 
 advanced civilization that the gentlemen of 
 the nipper and jimmy are not usually wit 
 nesses of the innocent devices for their 
 amusement offered by the bosom of the fam-
 
 26 BUKGLAllS /.V PARADISE. 
 
 ily in hours of panic ; the truth being that 
 the hours of panic and the hours of peril 
 in this, as in so many another case, fail to 
 coincide. 
 
 Corona's--c// >/'/'</>///, consisted in coun 
 terscarps of chairs as disposed in front of 
 windows. She was confident that no house 
 breaker could pass the pyramids and Pisan 
 Towers and Cleopatran Needles and Bunker 
 Hill Monuments which she constructed from 
 this useful article of domestic I'lirnituiv. H,-r 
 confidence only came to an end with her 
 chairs. Four to a set bought " in the 
 white" brought the supply in Paradise to 
 a visible mathematical end in the course of 
 the evening. She depended on sofa-pillo\\s 
 until she remembered that they were not a 
 noisy material for barricade purposes where 
 the main value must consist in capacity for 
 waking you up. She had what Mr. James 
 would call " a phase " of faith in screws. 
 But Corona had never in her life been able 
 to make a hole for the screw, or to get the 
 screw into the hole after she had made it
 
 THE SCARE. 27 
 
 In this case a native disability was empha 
 sized by the absence of the gimlet, which had 
 shared the fate of the hatchet and the paper 
 of tacks. When she had labored nobly, but 
 sadly, with the corkscrew for half an hour or 
 so, Puelvir came to her relief. 
 
 " Land, Miss Corona ! A screw won't 
 screw without a gimlet any more 'n you can 
 bury a coffin without a grave." 
 
 " A screw won't screw for a woman, I 'm 
 afraid'," said her mistress, rather plaintively. 
 " What have you done to your part of the 
 house, Puelvir ? " 
 
 " Well," said Puelvir, setting her arms 
 akimbo, and breathing very hard, " I 've 
 used up all the nails in the house. It '11 take 
 me an hour to dror 'em out come mornin'. 
 I built a sort of meetin'-house agen that there 
 kitchen winder where the bolt 's broke. I 
 built it outen coal-hods and tongs and kitchen 
 tables, let alon' a few stove covers and the 
 biler. Then I run the close-line all acrost 
 the dinin'-room in a sort of slip-noose. They 
 can't get nowhere-acrost that dinin'-room with-
 
 28 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 out bein' tripped and slip-noosed, would n't 
 I like to see 'em ! " 
 
 " Excellent, Puelvir! " said Corona, in tones 
 of faint admiration. " But how am / to get 
 across the dining-room ? " 
 
 " Oh ! you 'II have to go to bed up the 
 outside stairs, through my room," said Puel- 
 vir, serenely. " I '11 light the lantern and 
 take you right along." 
 
 "And those five burglars watching us from 
 the street, exposed to full view by the light 
 of that lantern? Never, Puelvir! We will 
 go to bed in the dark. What else have you 
 done ? " 
 
 " Well," said Puelvir, gleefully, " I 've kep 
 a kitchen fire. That 's what I 've done ! " 
 
 " A kitchen fire ! This hot night ! Why, 
 what in the world " 
 
 " Hot water," said Puelvir, fiercely. " And 
 pokers. Red - hot pokers. And puilst'ul 
 throw'd on 'em to scalt 'em. I 've run that 
 piece o' hose you had to fetch water from 
 the spring that would n't fetch, you know 
 up from the kittles into my room. I whit-
 
 THE SCARE. 29 
 
 tjed a hole in the floor to get it through, with 
 the bread-knife, and Mis' Rowin's old axe. I 
 borryed it of her. I told her I wanted to cut 
 some of them biscuit your brother's cook made 
 for you to bring home in the lunch-box. I 
 had to tell her something. I was n't going 
 to give her the particulars. I tell you what, 
 Miss Corona, come to get past them coal-hods, 
 and the close-line, and all them nails, and the 
 biler, and them soap-stones, and that there 
 scaldin' water and your screws," added Pu- 
 elvir, as a polite after-thought, " I '11 resk 
 their burglin' much in this house to-night." 
 
 Corona's family passed, as may be inferred, 
 a restless night. Mistress and maid stole up 
 the outside stairs to bed, in the dark, guilt- 
 
 % 
 
 " Some kind neighbor will take us for our 
 own burglars, and shoot," whispered Corona, 
 with chattering teeth. 
 
 " I dessay they mought," replied Puelvir, 
 cheerfully. Puelvir was in high spirits. The 
 duty of barricading Paradise had greatly ex 
 cited her. It was impossible not to suspect
 
 30 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 that Puelvir would be disappointed if nobody 
 burgled l that house. 
 
 When they had got safely past the slip- 
 noose and the boiling water and the pok r. 
 and engineered their way by the fortresses of 
 chairs without tilting them down, for they 
 hung poised with a delicacy which will hardly 
 be credited to so stolid an article, unless one is 
 familiar \\itli this species of architecture, 
 when they were actually in their rooms, with 
 the doors locked, and were well-nigh, indeed, 
 in bed, a pathetic wail, followed by an impe 
 rious outcry, startled them from below. They 
 had forgotten Matthew Launcelot. 
 
 With masculine indifference to feminine 
 agitations, Matthew Launcelot, the only un 
 disturbed member of the family, had slept off 
 the exhaustion of travel in some invisible 
 haunt down-stairs, and had waked under the 
 apparent impression that he himself was be 
 ing burgled in an acute form. 
 
 1 I use this word without apology for a term whu-h the 
 present state of American civilization has surely rendered 
 a necessity of the language.
 
 THE SCARE. 31 
 
 " I 'd rether hev burglars than that dog," 
 said Puelvir, scornfully. " He 's more trouble 
 in the long run, and less use. Whar '11 he 
 sleep now ? " 
 
 " I would take him in my room ; but it 
 does n't seem quite fair to defend myself so, 
 at your expense," said her mistress, kindly. 
 " You can keep him, if you want to." 
 
 " I would n't take the critter away from 
 you," said the maid, politely. " It would n't 
 become me." 
 
 It was decided that Matthew Launcelot 
 should sleep on the landing at the head of 
 the stairs, between the bedrooms. 
 
 " That divides the protection," observed 
 Corona. 
 
 " And halves the affliction," muttered Puel- 
 vir, as she crept down again (in her night 
 dress and crimping - pins, with a gossamer 
 waterproof too short for her), crawled past 
 the hot water and the poker and the clothes 
 line and Bunker Hill monument and the boiler 
 and the hose, and returned with the dog, 
 whom she had found reposing, with an in-
 
 32 BURGLARS IN PARAD! 
 
 jured air, upon the middle of the lace pillow- 
 sham on the guest-room bed. 
 
 As I say, it was a very restless night. 
 Every nocturnal sound took on awful propor 
 tions to Corona's straining ear. She could 
 not sleep. She was oppressed with her sense 
 of responsibility as the head of a family, if 
 harm came to the innocent creatures entrusted 
 to her care. " What if this were doubled, 
 trebled, sextupled, by, for instance, a hus 
 band and five children ? " she thought. It 
 did not occur to her at the moment, so pow 
 erful a compress is the habit of solitary life 
 upon the imagination, it really did not oc 
 cur to her that a husband would halve, much 
 less remove, the risk, but only how much lie 
 would add to the care. 
 
 It was a still night without, that is to say, 
 there was no wind; and Corona tried to yield 
 herself to the peace that comes in the power 
 of the sea to those who understand and love 
 it. She listened to the incoming of the 
 faithful, friendly tide upon the beach and 
 lava-gorge. She watched tin- shimmer of the
 
 THE SCARE. 33 
 
 stars and head-lights in the Harbor ; each 
 star made an arrow, and each head-light a 
 shaft of fire in the waves ; where the an 
 chored boats swung trustfully for their night's 
 rest, there seemed a little tunnel of flame cut 
 into the deep, as into a mine of light that lay 
 ablaze below the blackness. Now and then 
 a belated schooner stirred in slowly through 
 the calm, lifting her sailing signals of scarlet 
 and of green ; these pulsated as they moved 
 against the purple sky. One ocean steamer, 
 put in for some unknown errand, reared her 
 huge outline in the channel, with high and 
 brilliant lights. The shore fishermen were all 
 well at home, and except for the sharp rattle 
 of some furling sails, or the clank of a down- 
 going chain as some unseen boat swung to 
 her moorings, the Harbor was quite still. 
 
 Not so the Old Maid's Paradise. Every 
 clapboard squeaked. Every shingle started. 
 Each blind stirred stealthily. The very hogs 
 head groaned. Mysterious creaks ran along 
 the outer stairs. Inexplicable moans started 
 from the hammock on the piazza. Heart-
 
 34 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 throbs kept time to every real and unreal in 
 terruption of the night's repose. Puelvir 
 (and her crimpiiig-pinsi sat bolt upright in 
 bed between dreams of having her throat cut 
 by the man who stole the paper of tacks, and 
 of being shot by Miss Corona. Matthew 
 Launeelot, sensitive to the family atmosphere, 
 or to Puelvir's criticism, slept fitfully, and 
 musically divided the watches of the night 
 according to a taste and a conscience of his 
 own. When he did not bark he snored, and 
 when he did not snore he barked. Thus the 
 night passed. 
 
 " Puelvir," called her mistress once, through 
 the thin walls, " are you asleep ? " 
 
 " Hain't slept a wink," declared Puelvir, 
 starting from her last dream. " Who could ? " 
 
 " You did n't hear anything, did you ? 
 You don't think we 'd better go down, do you 
 and see ? " 
 
 " It 's them flat-irons," called Puelvir. " Or 
 the biler. Mebbe it 's your screws. And 
 how to mercy are we ever goin' down them 
 outside stairs in our iiio-h''ownds ? "
 
 THE SCARE. 35 
 
 " That 's true, Puelvir. I had n't thought 
 of it. You are quite right. How glad I 
 am we had Matthew Launcelot sleep up 
 stairs ! " 
 
 " Be you ! " replied Puelvir, with deep sig 
 nificance. As the night wore on its way, 
 Corona sank into the sleep which health is 
 sure to snatch from weariness or even from 
 anxiety. She was resting from her labors 
 as the defender of her family, in a harrow 
 ing dream that she had married a minister 
 in Montana, on a seven-hundred-dollar sal 
 ary, when she was roused by a noise. This 
 time it was a real noise. It was a terrible 
 noise. It thumped and thundered, it shrieked 
 and shattered through the silent, helpless 
 house. Five burglars ? Fifteen burglars 
 could not make its like. The two women 
 sprang, by one awful instinct, and faced each 
 other, shivering, on the landing. Corona had 
 lighted her candle, and, true to her military 
 instincts, grasped her revolver by the muz 
 zle. Puelvir appeared with her hose (the 
 well-hose, I mean) gripped in a death-like
 
 36 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 clutch, and immediately showered Corona 
 from head to foot with the water from tin- 
 kettle below, which, fortunately the fire 
 being low was n<> longer " scalt," but of 
 the temperature of melted ice-cream an hour 
 after dinner. 
 
 The noise meanwhile continued, and ac 
 celerated. It was a noise that delicd descrip 
 tion. It seemed to come from the dining- 
 room. 
 
 " I am going to descend," said the Head of 
 the Family in a hollow voice. u It is my duty. 
 You need not come. Stay and save yourself, 
 Puelvir. I shall go." 
 
 " If you think you 're a-goin' to be mur 
 dered one mortal step .without ///'." quavered 
 Puelvir, " you may suit yourself to another 
 hired girl." 
 
 She pushed by her mistress, and, without 
 another word, preceded her. Corona fol 
 lowed in a dripping condition. Pallid and 
 panting, they crept down-stairs. Corona held 
 her pistol pointed directly at Puelvir's crazy- 
 bone. Puelvir carried the hose, which was
 
 THE SCARE. 37 
 
 doggedly sputtering cold water all over the 
 house, with a general air of meaning to hit 
 somebody, it did n't much matter whom. 
 Since Corona was as wet as she could be al 
 ready, she regarded the hose with indiffer 
 ence. 
 
 The noise continued crescendo, and, guided 
 by its direful clew, these two defenders of 
 their altars and their fires courageously made 
 and stood their ground to see 
 
 Matthew Launcelot. Matthew Launcelot 
 and the clothes-line struggling together in 
 the dining-room. Straight into the slip-noose 
 and nowhere else that unhappy dog had 
 walked. There, hanging, strangling, yelling, 
 as nobody but Matthew Launcelot could yell, 
 though one took lessons at forty dollars a 
 quarter, the protector of his family was res 
 cued from the burglar's fate not a moment 
 too soon for the preservation of his valuable 
 and soothing life. 
 
 The clothes-line was not popular, after 
 this, as a means of domestic defense. The 
 slip-noose was voted off the list. Matthew
 
 38 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 Launcelot now slept in the kitchen. This 
 required the abrogation of the window barri 
 cade, because he insisted on sleeping in the 
 boiler, and it (and he) tumbled down on the 
 stove, about midnight, every night. On iron 
 ing days, when the stove was hot, this had its 
 disadvantages. Gradually the soap-stones and 
 the flat-irons seemed to become of less im 
 portance. The nails took too long to draw 
 out again. The chairs in the parlor got 
 scratched, and Cleopatra's Needle fell to the 
 earth at three o'clock A. M. one night, pro 
 ducing more of a shock to the nervous sys 
 tem than any gentlemanly Bostonian burglar 
 could possibly cause. Corona's screws had 
 never got more than half-way. Thus the bur 
 glar alarm of Paradise became, like those of 
 more ambitious homes, " more expensive than 
 the burglars," and, as fear gave way before 
 the absence of adventure, a daring disregard 
 of consequences, united to the native indo 
 lence of the hour preceding bed-time, led the 
 two women back to less exciting, if less in 
 genious, methods of locking their house. As
 
 THE SCARE. 39 
 
 no more hatchets or roosters were stolen, their 
 terrors slept. Corona ceased to reflect upon 
 the anxieties of protecting an imaginary 
 husband. Life in the matched-board cottage 
 reacted to more than its usual level of se 
 renity. 
 
 It was in the apathy following the intensity 
 of that first experience, perhaps, that Coro 
 na's thoughts took an idle and luxurious turn, 
 which she one day communicated to the part 
 ner of her joys and sorrows, in these startling 
 words : 
 
 " Puelvir, I 'm going to buy a horse."
 
 ITL 
 
 GOOD FAMILY HORSES. 
 
 CORONA'S announcement of her intention 
 to purchase a horse plunged her family and 
 immediate circle of friends into one of those 
 j >aiiics of good advice which are sure to fol 
 low (if anything follows) the unexpected upon 
 the part of a solitary woman. Corona re 
 flected that this was so much better than for 
 nobody to care enough to advise her that she 
 bore it with grateful good-humor. Her sister- 
 in-iaw wrote by return mail that it was very 
 extravagant, and that she would need the 
 money for a seal-skin cloak ; but finance ami 
 a comprehension of Corona's needs were not 
 Susy's strong points. Tom telegraphed : 
 "You'll get cheated." Some old friends 
 known as Elf and Mary, who had shared 
 Corona's first summer in Paradise, remon-
 
 GOOD FAMILY HORSES. 41 
 
 strated in letters of thirteen and seventeen 
 pages respectively. Elf objected on the 
 ground that Matthew Launcelot was already 
 as much of a zoological responsibility as one 
 woman could sanely support. Mary said that 
 Mr. Sinuous said that it was better to hire 
 from the livery, on account of the blacksmith's 
 bills ; but then Mary was still a bride. 
 
 General and Mrs. Wolchester drove over 
 from Gride's farm to advise Corona to substi 
 tute a tricycle. Some Boston acquaintances 
 said their horses always had the heaves. Old 
 Father Morrison, the lobster man, asked where 
 she was goin' to keep the critter, and remarked 
 that his own legs was good enough for him. 
 Mrs. Rowin claimed that horses were danger 
 ous animals to have around. Zero cautiously 
 observed that he did n't know a boy in Fair- 
 harbor would tackle up for less than five dol 
 lars and seventy-five cents a week. Puelvir 
 said nothing at all the severest form of per 
 sonal discouragement which Puelvir was ever 
 known to throw upon her mistress's hopes or 
 purposes.
 
 42 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 To all of this kindly interest Corona re 
 sponded with a cheerful deference to the vie\\ - 
 advanced in each respective case, and pro 
 ceeded to take steps for the furtherance of 
 her own ; a course of conduct which made all 
 her advisers happy, and herself besides, and, 
 that was a good deal to achieve. 
 
 To her brother she wrote as follows : 
 
 " DEAR TOM, Thank you for your offer 
 to come down and buy iny horse. You know 
 I should be glad to have you, and you know 
 you won't come. Any l horse-sense ' for 
 warded to me by telegraph or telephone, in 
 the intervals of your duties, will be grate 
 fully receipted, and respected. Until you do 
 get her, I think I shall look about a little for 
 myself. 
 
 " It is true that 1 have never before been the 
 purchaser of a family horse. I admit it. But 
 when 1 think of the years I have driven Susy 
 down town, and waited for her to do her shop 
 ping in a sleet-storm ; when I remember the 
 occasions upon which I have (in your unavoid 
 able absence) harnessed to go for the doctor
 
 GOOD FAMILY HORSES. 43 
 
 for the baby, usually at night, and to be 
 professionally told that nothing ailed her; 
 when I reflect upon the August afternoons, 
 with the thermometer at 95, that have seen 
 me jerking and cl'k'king the family carryall 
 along to give the baby an airing, and espe 
 cially upon the occasion when the door gave 
 way, and she tumbled out backward and 
 turned a somersault between the wheels, and 
 landed sitting down beneath the carriage ; 
 when I recall the training I had in catching 
 Old Ben, raw from the pasture, to go for the 
 mail, because Patrick had a sick headache, 
 the day after a wake, and Susy was afraid he 
 would break down, when I think these 
 things over calmly, I am fain to ask, how 
 ever modestly, if my horse education will 
 not go for something in the awful risk which 
 I feel I am about to take upon myself. 
 
 " Cheated ? I expect to get cheated. Why 
 should I escape the universal human fate ? 
 But worse things may happen to a woman 
 than to be cheated ; and I want a horse, be 
 he honest or a rascal, and am, 
 
 " Yours, CORO."
 
 44 BURGLARS IN PAR A DISK. 
 
 Scarcely twenty-four hours had elapsed since 
 Corona's intention to add a horse to her do 
 mestic circle had been mentioned aloud, before 
 she found herself in the heart of a new world. 
 It might be succinctly called the Horse World. 
 The delights of the fireside, the enticements 
 of the June sky, the fascination of the ocean, 
 the delicate shift and play of summer life, re 
 ceded from her consciousness like plates in a 
 magic lantern. Her brain-cells became sten 
 ciled with the language and literature of the 
 turf. Anxious to proceed upon her rash ven 
 ture with some degree of intelligence, she had 
 made herself the possessor of a book called 
 " The Horse and his Habits." When anybody 
 called as somebody did at the rate of six or 
 seven a day with a horse to sell, she con- 
 suited this useful volume. She received the 
 impression that a horse was the most delicate 
 creature, and subject to the richest stock of 
 bodily infirmities of any specimen of organized 
 life known to our present civili/ation. An in 
 fant or a woman was nothing to it. Beyond 
 this one idea, which rapidly assumed the dan-
 
 GOOD FAMILY HORSES. 45 
 
 gerous proportions of the " fixed," in Corona's 
 mental life at this period, it cannot be said that 
 she brought away much available knowledge 
 from " The Horse and his Habits." She pe 
 rused the book sturdily. Tom did not come. 
 Of course Tom did not come, he was in Ida 
 ho ; it was something about bear-skins, so 
 she clung to this inteUigent volume bravely, as 
 the sole defense between herself and that deli 
 cate sense of honor well known to belong to 
 the jockey considered as a class. Who has 
 ever solved the riddle, What is there about 
 horses which should be so injurious to the hu 
 man conscience ? Why should a horse make 
 a man a commercial rascal, rather than glue, 
 or cracked wheat, or dry goods, or soap ? 
 
 One horse in particular pleased Corona very 
 much. The owner had come every day with 
 it, and stayed. He had stayed very much. 
 He had fastened his horse to the clothes-post, 
 beginning on Monday, when the lines were 
 up, and outstayed all the other bids. Corona, 
 with feminine respect for the pertinacious in 
 pursuit, admired the perseverance of this man,
 
 46 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 and hated to hurt his feelings by refusing to 
 take his horse. 
 
 Her friend Mary had come over to stay a 
 few days (Mr. Sinuous said she might. This 
 was the more praiseworthy in Mr. Sinuous be 
 cause he himself was not invited), in order to 
 help Corona through this trying period. The 
 two ladies drove together from morning to 
 night, experimenting with the different ap 
 plicants, in the lazy, delightful country fash 
 ion that makes horse-hunting as a high art 
 a pleasure unknown to towns. Through mur 
 muring lanes, where the bees fastidiously 
 tasted the barberry blossoms, over the bril 
 liant beaches, and deep into the scented woods, 
 Mary and Corona rode and rode. They rode 
 with old horses, young horses, sound horses, 
 sick horses, horses that went, and horses 
 that would n't go, and horses that went more 
 than was expected of them ; horses that ran 
 away with them and horses that sat down 
 with them, horses that limped, horses that 
 stumbled, horses that coughed, horses that 
 took the bits between their teeth, and horses
 
 GOOD FAMILY HORSES. 47 
 
 that wouldn't go up-hill without a lump of 
 sugar. There was one but only one who 
 kicked the dasher down when he met the first 
 summer boarder, in an imported shade hat, 
 constructed in the form of an orthodox meet- 
 in or-house, and ornamented with muslin sun- 
 
 o ' 
 
 flowers. 
 
 For some reason sufficient to the reader of 
 " The Horse and his Habits," none of these 
 animals seemed suitable for the needs of her 
 family, and she returned with a weakening 
 heart to the horse tied at the clothes-post since 
 Monday morning. His owner was quite sure 
 that he would fill the bill. 
 
 "The bill?" asked Corona. "Fill what 
 bill ? We have n't come to the bill yet." 
 
 " Pardon, mum," said the man, reddening 
 a little. 
 
 Corona looked at him vaguely. She was 
 still deficient in " horse-talk." She explained 
 that she wanted a good family horse. 
 
 She was assured that this was a perfect 
 specimen of the kind of thing. 
 
 Sound?
 
 48 ItURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 Sound as sense ! Had n't an out about him. 
 
 Corona did not know what an out was. 
 She thought it might be some new kind of 
 disease. So she consulted " The Horse and 
 his Habits " before replying. 
 
 " It is n't in my book," she whispered to 
 Mary. " It may be one of those new aggra 
 vations developed by the epizootic. But as 
 long as the horse hasn't got it, I don't see 
 that it matters. Do you ? " 
 
 " Why n-no. I should n't think it did," 
 said Mary, conscientiously. 
 
 They went out again and reexamined the 
 horse. He was a very handsome horse. 
 
 Was he kind ? 
 
 Kind as a tarrier pup. 
 
 Afraid of the cars ? 
 
 Cars ? He was n't afraid of the Last Trum 
 pet. 
 
 How many miles an hour ? 
 
 Ten, week-days, and twelve and a half if 
 you wanted the doctor. Easy. 
 
 " But we never do want the doctor," ob 
 jected Corona, thoughtfully.
 
 GOOD FAMILY HORSES. 49 
 
 Was he easy-bifcted ? 
 
 You could drive him with a hair-pin and a 
 piece of sewin'-silk. 
 
 His price ? 
 
 Two hundred and fifty dollars. 
 
 Lowest price ? 
 
 Lowest price ; that was fifty dollars less J n 
 an animal with his points would bring any 
 where else. But seein' she was a lady sort 
 of, as you might say, unprotected, no men 
 folks to deal with he 'd let her have it for 
 two hundred and fifty, cash down. 
 
 " It is a good deal to get a horse that will 
 never have the outs," observed Corona sotto 
 voce to her friend. " And he is so handsome ! 
 I think I will take him on trial." 
 
 " I 've got to go to Boston to buy a Canady 
 colt," objected the trader. " You could n't 
 close just as well now, could you ? It would 
 be a great convenience to me." 
 
 Corona was sorry to inconvenience him, 
 but she thought it best to keep the horse for 
 half a day or so before she bought him. She 
 had no doubt she should decide to keep him.
 
 50 BURGLARS IN PARADl^K. 
 
 She liked the animal very much. She thanked 
 the trader for his perseverance, and ordered 
 the horse brought round for a drive at two 
 o'clock. His name? she asked, as an after 
 thought ; they had found it a little difficult 
 to distinguish among the horses. The horse- 
 that-sat-down, for instance, was rather long ; 
 and The-long-legged-horse-with-tlie-gout 
 whatever they called it > that-raii-over-a-wheel- 
 harrow-and-a-bahy took time. The name of 
 this very handsome horse without an out was 
 Pepper. 
 
 Corona and Mary took a trial trip with 
 Pepper. He started off excellently. He was 
 exceedingly handsome. The ladies enjoyed 
 driving such a handsome horse. They went 
 over by the celebrated Long Beach, where 
 the waves came affectionately to the most sol 
 itary and silver sands of the fair coast-line. 
 The full afternoon coloring was on the water: 
 the horizon line quivered with sails; the sky 
 Mazed like a blue mirror of the gods into 
 which no mortal face should gaze. The two 
 friends were not used to driving in Fairhar-
 
 GOOD FAMILY HORSES. 51 
 
 bor, and they felt as if they had come to a 
 new place. They were in the best of spirits, 
 and enraptured with the handsome horse. 
 He made good time. He was easy at the bit. 
 He had no dangerous tricks. 
 
 "And he looks," said Corona hopefully, 
 " as if he had a strong constitution." 
 
 " Perhaps," ^ventured Mary, " he has had 
 everything, and come safely out of it. Let 
 us hope so." 
 
 " I think I shall buy him to-morrow, and 
 put him in Mr. Jacobs's barn, and get Zero 
 to take care of him," proceeded Corona. 
 " It will be a great comfort to have de 
 cided on a horse who could be driven with a 
 skein of sewing-silk and who is not afraid of 
 the Last Trumpet, and especially one who 
 would go for the doctor in twelve miles a 
 minute." 
 
 " Was it twelve miles a minute f " asked 
 Mary, looking a little puzzled. " And 
 why, there, Corona, look there ! No. Look 
 here. What upon earth is the matter with 
 this horse ? How queerly he acts ! "
 
 52 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 " He does act a little queerly," admitted 
 Corona. 
 
 " He does n't seem to feel right about the 
 leg there." 
 
 " It is true, he does n't ; he seems to jerk 
 it a good deal," faltered Corona. " I don't 
 know \vhat it means, I 'm sure." 
 
 "Do you think he's harnessed right?'' 
 queried Mary. They were in a very lonely 
 place, two miles from a man. 
 
 "Oh, yes! I know it isn't the harm >. 
 I can harness. I would n't take a lady to 
 drive if I could n't. I declare ! how this 
 horse does act ! I wonder if he has n't got 
 the outs, after all?" 
 
 " He looks like one of those wooden jiimp- 
 ing-jacks you put in children's Christmas 
 stockings," observed Mary, more courageously. 
 
 " He does seem uncomfortable," assented 
 Corona. ** But I don't see that we can do 
 anything but drive back and ask somebody." 
 
 " Let us ask the first man we meet," sug 
 gested Mary. " He is likely to be unpreju 
 diced."
 
 GOOD FAMILY HORSES. 53 
 
 " Very well," assented Corona again. " But 
 if I had * The Horse and his Habits ' here 
 I left it at home." 
 
 The first man they met was a letter-carrier. 
 It is one of the salient points of Fairharbor 
 that you meet letter-carriers in the wilderness 
 almost anywhere, just as you meet lamp 
 posts in the forest ; and that the government 
 kindly supplies them (I mean the carriers) 
 with little open buggies to ride in. 
 
 At the foot of the long sandy hills, in the 
 beautiful width of marsh and thicket and 
 pools of bright green water, with the sea at 
 their backs and- the city two miles away at 
 their faces, the two ladies met the letter-car 
 rier in his carriage, and asked him what ailed 
 their horse. 
 
 " He seems to hitch his leg up and down 
 in a singular manner," said Mary, apologet 
 ically. 
 
 "I haven't paid for him," cried Corona, 
 hastily. " I thought I 'd like to ask some 
 stranger what he supposed ailed him." 
 
 The carrier leaned out luxuriously from
 
 54 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 the open buggy, and gave one languid look 
 at Pepper's right hind leg. 
 
 " Hain't bought him, ye say ? " with a gen 
 tle smile. 
 
 " Oh, no ; not at all. But I had thought 
 I should until " 
 
 " I would n't if I was you," observed the 
 carrier, driving on. 
 
 Without offering any further information 
 tin* officer of government departed, and J it 
 the ladies and Pepper to their reflection. 
 Corona said she should drive straight to the 
 omnibus man and ask what was the matter 
 uith that horse. She did so, as quickly as 
 possible ; Pepper meanwhile striking out ob 
 liquely and transversely at the sweet summer 
 air in a very unpleasant and irregular manner. 
 
 " He ? Oh ! He 's got the spring-halt," 
 said the omnibus man. " I know him. He 's 
 had it for years." 
 
 "The string-halt?" said Corona to Mary 
 as they walked home. " I don't seem to re 
 member the string-halt. I don't believe it is 
 in my book."
 
 GOOD FAMILY HORSES. 55 
 
 " You '11 remember it now," said Mary. 
 
 As Corona did not purchase that handsome 
 horse, she was fain to look about a little 
 more. She received a letter that interested 
 her from a person in a neighboring village, 
 who said he had a horse for sale which he 
 was sure would please her. It was just the 
 horse for a lady to drive. He hoped she would 
 give him a call. He would be honest with 
 her, he always meant to be honest with a 
 lady, and tell her there was one objection to 
 the horse : he was n't exactly handsome ; but 
 he had points enough to make up for that, 
 especially as a lady's horse. In particular, he 
 was very kind. Corona's faith in the com 
 mercial value of beauty having received a 
 shock, she was inclined to look up the horse 
 who owned to being not exactly handsome ; so 
 she and Mary drove to the neighboring vil 
 lage known by the beautiful Indian name 
 of Carriesquall to see the homely horse. 
 
 He proved to be, indeed, no Adonis ; but 
 he looked, as his owner averred, kind. In 
 fact, he did not look much but kind, if one
 
 56 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 told the truth. He was big, burly, gray, and 
 serious. He had a philosophical air, and re 
 garded Corona with the manner of one who 
 could teach her a few abstract truths, if he 
 thought it worth his while. 
 
 " Well, sir," said Corona, " we have trav 
 eled fourteen miles to see your horse. Is 
 this he?" 
 
 " This is he," was the proud reply. " There 
 isn't a better horse in all Carries|uall, for a 
 lady's horse, than that there horse. He *s 
 just as kind " 
 
 " What 's his name ? " asked Corona. 
 
 " Wall, we call him the Old Army. But 
 you ken call him most anything you chou-e. 
 After you 've bought him." 
 
 " Was he in the army ? " cried Mary. 
 " How interesting ! Was he wounded ? '' 
 
 "He was left for dead," said Old Army's 
 master, solemnly. " His master, which was 
 a major-general, never expected to get him 
 home alive." 
 
 " But he did ? " asked Mary, breathlessly, 
 quite forgetting herself.
 
 GOOD FAMILY HORSES. 57 
 
 " Yes, marm. He did. That there is the 
 very horse. And he 's as kind " 
 
 " He looks kind," observed Corona, ten 
 derly. How old is he ? " 
 
 Truth compels me to state that it had not, 
 up to this moment, occurred to her that the 
 military career of Old Army in the Civil War 
 could have any disadvantageous connection 
 with his age. To put it delicately, was it not 
 one in which she herself shared ? Had not 
 she, too, lived out the War? And did it 
 seem other than year before last since she 
 bade Tom good-by in the dark, on the pi 
 azza, at their fathers house ? Handsome 
 boy ! How brave he looked, with that quiver 
 in the lip that kissed her ! And was it more 
 than last year that she caught him to her 
 heart again ? Safe, safe, safe, thank God 
 and fought it through ! No. She, too, had 
 " been through the War," and to her, too, as 
 to all others like her, it was a living, palpi 
 tating present, on which age could lay no 
 hand. A quarter of a century since Tom's 
 regiment marched away ? A quarter of a cen-
 
 68 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 tiny since she snatched the list of " 7\'/7A d, 
 Wounded, Mix*iny" in the blurring, shak 
 ing paper every day? A quarter of a cen 
 tury since 
 
 " He 's just as k'nnl " the master of Old 
 Army was saying very distinctly. Corona 
 started, and begged his pardon and, Mary, 
 did you speak? What is the price, sir, of 
 this kind and patriotic horse ? A price was 
 named ; but Corona did not listen, did not 
 hear. She and Old Army regarded each 
 other closely. She looked into the eyes of 
 the ancient warrior. She stroked his cheek 
 tenderly.- She wanted him. But the veteran 
 responded to her gaze with a deep and intel 
 ligent look. He knew better than that. If 
 ever a horse tried to say to a purchaser, 
 " Don't do it ! You 're very complimen 
 tary, and I appreciate it, but don't you do 
 it ! " that horse then and there essayed to do 
 that thing. 
 
 " How much did you say ? " asked Corona, 
 coming slowly to herself, and trying to look 
 like " The Horse and his Habits " bound in
 
 GOOD FAMILY HORSES. 59 
 
 two volumes at Old Army's master, who re 
 plied that he had said one hundred and 
 eighty dollars. 
 
 " That seems a large price for so old a 
 horse." 
 
 " Oh ! he was only ten come last March," 
 said Old Army's master, confidently. " He 
 ain't what you 'd call old yet." 
 
 " He is n't exactly young, you know," de 
 murred Corona, politely. 
 
 " Wall, I did n't suppose you was after a 
 colt, for a lady's horse. There's this about 
 a good, mature horse, you know. He 's had 
 the measles and all those juvenile diseases. 
 You 're sure he has n't got 'em to go through 
 again." 
 
 Mary hastily said that she thought this 
 was a great point. 
 
 " How many miles does he make ? " asked 
 Corona, pursuing her inquiries more rigor 
 ously, now, by force of reaction from that 
 vision of a score of years ago. Smoke, blood, 
 butchery, the arms thrown up in falling, the 
 flag flung to the bright sky above it all,
 
 60 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 let it pass. Let come, as come it must. an! 
 pass. Through the red and awful mist how 
 pathetically look out the eyes of these dumb 
 things that we made soldiers of, who learned 
 the deadly skill of war, acquired its valor, 
 bore its tortures, earned its glory they km-w 
 not how, and died, they knew not why ! 
 
 "How fast," proceeded Corona, brin^ini;- 
 herself violently back, " how fast can Old 
 Army go, on an average ? " 
 
 " Wall, he ain't a racer" reluctantly. 
 
 "I perceive that. But how much, for in 
 stance, will he make an hour? What kind 
 of a roadster is he ? " 
 
 " Wall, he don't go so very fast. But 
 he 's an excellent lady's hoss. He 's just as 
 k',nd" 
 
 " I don't underrate his kindness. But what 
 I want to know, before I purchase that horse, 
 is, exactly how much time you can get out of 
 him." 
 
 " If you feed him well ? " hopefully. 
 
 " Oh, yes ! If you feed him very well/' 
 
 " And don't over-use him ? "
 
 GOOD FAMILY HORSES. 61 
 
 " Never." 
 
 " Give him twelve quarts a day and his 
 hay?" 
 
 " Certainly. Fourteen, if he wishes it and 
 can work for it." 
 
 Wall," - - slowly. Wa-al," faintly. 
 " He 's an excellent lady's hoss. And he 's 
 as kind But he ain't so much on speed 
 as some hosses is. Fact is, he won't " 
 
 "Well? He won't "- 
 
 " Why, the fact is, he won't trot at all ! "
 
 IV. 
 
 THE LADY OF 8HALOTT. 
 
 " THERE 's ben a horse-man here to see 
 you," said Puelvir. " Three of him. I s< -ut 
 the fust one off myself." 
 
 " Why, Puelvir ! " 
 
 " Well, I did. He had a sort of shiny, 
 skity, graham-flour colored horse he said he 
 was sure you 'd buy. So I asked the grocer 
 when he come, and he said the critter had the 
 ganders. He said he 'd known him ever since 
 him and the horse were babies." 
 
 " Did n't he say the glanders, perhaps, Puel 
 vir?" 
 
 " No 'm," said Puelvir stoutly. " This horse 
 had the ganders ; I 'm sure of it. So I took 
 it upon myself to tell him it was n't your re- 
 ception-dav, jind you couldn't see fashionable 
 callers. So he went away. He swore at me, 
 too."
 
 THE LADY OF SHALOTT. 63 
 
 " Swore at you, Puelvir ? " 
 
 " Yes. He said I was a darned old fool. 
 I don't know's I blame him. I hadn't got 
 my switch on, and I think I do look a little 
 mature mornin's. The next one, he come to 
 the front door and sot down in the parlor, do 
 my best. He said he 'd wait for you, 'n there 
 he sot. He had a span he wanted you to 
 buy. I told him you could n't keep a span, 
 because you had n't only me, and I could n't 
 take care of two ; it would interfere with the 
 cookin'. He asked eight hundred and twenty, 
 five dollars for 'em. I asked him what he 
 took you for." 
 
 " Dear me, Puelvir ! You do turn them 
 off easily." 
 
 " Well, this one took the life out of me. 
 He sot, an' sot. I warn't agoin' to leave him 
 alon' in the parlor, so I sot too. He. looked 
 at the picters and the photograph albums 'n 
 he said he 'd heard you was quite well along 
 in years ; but he 'd never had the pleasure of 
 seem* you to make your acquaintance. I told 
 him you was only twenty-five, and had re 
 fused more offers than any lady I knew of."
 
 64 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 " Why, Pue/vir ! " 
 
 " I did. I knew the kind of feller I 'd got 
 hold of. There warn't no other way to teach 
 him manners. He kinder meeked down after 
 that. So by and by I told him I 'd got a pud- 
 den* to make, and that you 'd gone to Carrir- 
 squall to buy a horse you liked, so he'd have 
 to excuse me. So I showed him the door, 
 and he drove his span away, spiliu' for a 
 fight." 
 
 It was in the midst of these agitating and 
 depressing days that there came a telegram 
 from Tom. It was dated : 
 
 "UNION PACIFIC RAILWAY, 
 Latitude and Longitude unknown, 
 June , 18 ." 
 
 and ran, 
 
 " If there is a man in Fairharbor you can 
 trust, trust him. Have known good horses 
 got that way. Can't get hack till August. 
 
 " TOM." 
 
 Corona filed the telegram for reference, and 
 mt -a M while pursued her search, with various 
 and serious results. All the poetry of life was
 
 THE LADY OF SHALOTT. 65 
 
 now crushed under the mailed feet of horses. 
 The glamour of the sea and shore fled before 
 the whip of the jockey. She wondered how 
 long it would take whatever comfort she did 
 get out of her horse, when she got him at all, 
 to compensate for the loss of spiritual tone 
 which a month of horse-hunting had cost her ; 
 and then it occurred to her, perhaps for the 
 first time quite intelligently, to wonder how 
 it was with people who had to occupy them 
 selves with matters which interfered with the 
 spiritual tone, and how fair it was to try them 
 on the same sort of keyboard or tuning-fork 
 by which one would set the moral music of 
 different lives. 
 
 She pursued these very natural reflections 
 with the zest of novelty, while she and Mary 
 drove all about the wonderful Cape in the 
 long summer days. For still they rode and 
 rode. They xode with pretty horses and ugly 
 horses, serious horses and frivolous horsas, safe 
 horses and dangerous horses. There was one 
 that went to sleep in the harness while they 
 were doing errands, and snored. There was
 
 C6 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 one which they decided to buy, and the bar 
 gain was all but irrevocably dosed, when Old 
 Father Morrison rowed the length of the Har 
 bor against a head wind, and arrival in an 
 exhausted condition just in time to say that lie 
 knew a man who knew another man who said 
 his diseased wife's sister used to own that 
 horse, and then he was spavined and blind in 
 one eye. There was one very interesting an 
 imal that Mary took a fancy to, and he died 
 of an attack of the heaves while they were 
 driving in the woods, six miles from home. 
 Mary thought he had the whooping-cough, and 
 declared the trouble was that the horse was 
 too young. There was another which deeply 
 attracted Corona, but when her interest in him 
 had reached an advanced stage, one pleasant 
 morning he had the blind staggers, and ran 
 away with them, and threw them both out into 
 a blackberry thicket, and the owner sent in a 
 bill for the buggy. 
 
 Matters were in this discouraging position 
 when, one day, Puelvir said a very pleasant- 
 complected gentleman had come to see about
 
 THE LADY OF SHALOTT. 67 
 
 a horse, and she had told him her mistress 
 would be down directly. When Corona an 
 swered this summons, she was surprised to find 
 an old Fairharbor acquaintance who had 
 moved to a neighboring town, and whom she 
 had not seen for some time. His name was 
 Thumb, Mr. Thumb. He was a carpenter. 
 She greeted him cordially. Had he not once 
 been a neighbor ? And Fairharbor neighbors 
 all wore a kind of glamour to Corona. Each 
 one seemed to belong to her, to compose her 
 life in concentric layers, as the rings compose 
 a tree. 
 
 " I did n't know 's you 'd recollect me," 
 said Mr. Thumb. 
 
 Corona assured him that she had never for 
 gotten him. 
 
 " I heard tell you wanted a horse," said Mr. 
 Thumb. 
 
 Corona's heart sank ; but she admitted the 
 fact. 
 
 " Hain't been very lucky, have ye ? " 
 
 Not very. But she hoped to succeed in 
 time.
 
 68 BURGLARS IN J'.\l!.\ IHSK. 
 
 " Do you remember my little boy ? " asked 
 the old neighbor, abruptly. 
 
 " Oh ! perfectly," said Corona. " Which 
 little boy? Bob, or Freddy? Or Benjamin 
 Franklin, or" 
 
 " Not any of them" interrupted the father. 
 " I mean my other little boy, my little dwarf 
 boy." 
 
 "Ah! Yes, indeed, I do." 
 
 " The little deformed fellow, hunch-back. 
 they called him." 
 
 " Of course I remember him. Tommy, 
 was n't he ? " 
 
 " Yes, marm, Tom was his name. It was 
 a very unfort'nate name. But, you see, me 'n 
 his mother didn't know he was going to be 
 like that when we named him, and, seeing he 
 was christened so, his mother did n't like to 
 alter it ; for she 's pious, being a perfessor. 
 Reminded his name, I think, some. It made 
 him shy of tin- other children. He always 
 liked to be round a house with women folks." 
 
 " Yes, I remember," said Corona, softly. 
 " He was a dear little fellow. How is he 
 now?"
 
 THE LADY OF SHALOTT. 69 
 
 " Do you remember how you used to have 
 him over to see you when you was a summer 
 boarder, before you ever built, or his moth 
 er 'n me moved out o' town ? " 
 
 " I had almost forgotten that. I only re 
 member what a dear little gentle thing he 
 was." 
 
 "Wall, you did. You used to ask him 
 over to sit in your hammock and play picture- 
 books on your floor. He was very fond of 
 you." 
 
 "He said," added Mr. Thumb, after a 
 pause, " that he felt like other boys when he 
 went to see that lady. He liked you. You 
 were good to him. Don't you remember, too, 
 when he had the fever, settin' up nights with 
 him one spell ? And taking of him to ride 
 when he got better ? " 
 
 "It was such a little thing to do," said 
 Corona, with her eyes full. " I was well. I 
 was perfectly able. Anybody would." 
 
 "Do you think so?'' asked Mr. Thumb, 
 slowly. " Well, I don't know. But his 
 
 mother and me remember it. You made him 
 
 i
 
 70 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 a Jack-o'-lantern, too ; he called it a Jack-me- 
 lantern ; he had such queer little ways. So I 
 thought I 'd come over to see you. I " 
 
 Mr. Thumb hesitated, rose, sat down again ; 
 the color came all over his plain, straightfor 
 ward face. 
 
 " I don't know how to say the thing I 've 
 come for to say, now I 've got here, exactly. 
 It ain't a common sort of business." 
 
 " Is Tommy pretty well ? " asked Corona, 
 cheerfully, to help him on. 
 
 "I guess so," said the father, looking 
 hard into his hat. " I hope the little fellow 's 
 well these days. He died last March." . . . 
 
 " Oh ' " cried Corona, in her quick, impul 
 sive way. " Oh ! you poor people ! Oh ! I 
 never heard about it ! " 
 
 But she did not say she was sorry. Who 
 could be sorry for Tommy ? 
 
 " Of course he 's well," she whispered, 
 " and straight, and like the other boys. 
 Dear little Tommy ! " 
 
 She found it hard not to say, How glad I 
 am ! But a glance at the father's face re-
 
 THE LADY OF SHALOTT. 71 
 
 strained her. Great, sparse tears were falling 
 into the carpenter's old felt hat. He brushed 
 them away with the back of his hand. 
 
 (Do working-people do this because grief 
 cannot wait for time to wash the fingers?) 
 He brushed away the tears, and rose to go. 
 
 " He died very quick and easy, marm. No 
 body knew what ailed him. But he 's dead. 
 His mother and me, we miss him more 'n you 
 think we would. . . . And when I heerd 
 you wanted a horse, and the way them 
 traders was puttin' on you, I says to his 
 mother, I '11 sell her my mare, if she wants it. 
 And I come over to say so. Would you like 
 to see her ? She 's tied outside." 
 
 Corona remembered Tom's telegram, and 
 she glanced at Mr. Thumb keenly. 
 
 " You are very good," she began, not 
 knowing what to say. 
 
 " No," said Mr. Thumb, putting his hat 
 on. "It's not that. Dare say I shall sell 
 the mare anyways to somebody. I want the 
 ready money. I shall have to ask you her 
 vally. She'll fetch it, any time. If you'll
 
 72 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 trust me, I won't take a cent beyond it. 
 She's sound, and she's kind, and she's all 
 I '11 sell for. And she 's a pretty fair road 
 ster. Tommy was very fond of that mare." 
 
 " I don't sell her so much to make a 
 trade," added Mr. Thumb, lifting his licad, 
 " as I do because I want to sell you a good 
 horse. I says to his mother, * She 's been 
 kind to me.' If you feel inclined to trust 
 me, ma'am You needn't, if you don't 
 choose, you know ; there 's no obligation to 
 it. But you 've been kind to me, and I 'd 
 like to see you have a good horse ! " 
 
 " I think," he said again, " that mebbe 
 Tommy 'd like it if he was round, you know. 
 ... He ain't," added the father, pitifully. 
 
 The lady and her old neighbor looked into 
 each other's eyes for a moment, then Corona 
 held out her hand. 
 
 " Let us go out and see the horse," she 
 said, in a low voice. " If I like her, I shall 
 take her on trusty Mr. Thumb." 
 
 Mr. Thumb's eyes, though they were still 
 wet because of Tommy, twinkled pleasantly.
 
 THE LADY OF SHALOTT. 73 
 
 He thought of his ready money ; but it was 
 without alarm. A new phrase had been 
 added to the " horse talk " with which he 
 was familiar ; he repeated it to himself with 
 a decorous chuckle. 
 
 " She '11 take her on tmst, will she ? Come, 
 I like that now ! " as he untied the mare from 
 the clothes-post and brought her out into the 
 road. 
 
 She was a pretty creature. Corona took in 
 her points rapidly, with an eye which experi 
 ence was training to the imperfect extent to 
 which experience can do much for any of us. 
 The mare was a good color, a chestnut ; she 
 had a straight backbone and broad, solid 
 hips, a clean-cut hoof, and eyes which indi 
 cated that she carried her heart in her brains. 
 Her teeth said that she was about five years 
 old. She carried her head daintily, had a 
 fine and sensitive skin and an air of refine 
 ment, which tells as quickly in a horse as in 
 a woman. She seemed to be in excellent 
 health. Mary said she did not believe any 
 thing would ail that horse unless it should be 
 nervous exhaustion.
 
 74 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 Puelvir said : 
 
 " If you 've got to have another critter, 
 that 's the critter ! " 
 
 Matthew Lanncelot came out and sniffed 
 at the mare's delicate ankles, critically. He 
 had taken no interest in this horse business ; 
 it had filled him from the first with a melan 
 choly which at times amounted to misan 
 thropy ; he turned his back after a moment's 
 inspection, with the air of a connoisseur uhose 
 opinion was undervalued ; returned to the 
 parlor sofa in disdain ; then suddenly, seem 
 ing to he overcome by emotion more powerful 
 than mere social prudence could manage, he 
 darted out, planted himself directly in front 
 of the horse, eyed her with savage intent ness, 
 and proceeded to lift up his voice in a series 
 of prolonged and deafening howls, which 
 reverberated from cliff to bowlder with the 
 force of anguish bursting from a soul misun 
 derstood. 
 
 " The creetur 's jealous of the critter," 
 said Puelvir. " I would n't have s'posed he 
 had the brains. I tliink the more on him."
 
 THE LADY OF SHALOTT. 75 
 
 Corona patted the dog, who received her 
 caresses scornfully ; but she looked into the 
 eyes of the horse herself with a premonition 
 that was half sadness. 
 
 " Shall I love you too ?" she thought. For 
 Corona had learned that increase of love is 
 always increase of sympathy, and hence of 
 pain ; and that it was a toss-up in the dice of 
 fate whether so much as the heart of a dumb 
 thing is to be won without more cost than 
 comfort. The ladylike horse returned her 
 gaze with a certain solemnity. She seemed 
 to say she understood. She seemed to say : 
 
 " On the whole, does n't it pay ? " 
 
 " I '11 try her on the beach," said Corona, 
 abruptly. 
 
 She took the mare out for an hour ; she 
 would let nobody go with her ; she felt that 
 they must understand each other by them 
 selves. The pretty creature was an excellent 
 roadster. She had her little fears and tre 
 mors and frolics, as any horse of spirit ought 
 to have ; but she yielded to the voice, and 
 knew no tricks. Corona came home in love,
 
 76 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 hopelessly in love, and in chains to the 
 little pony. She preserved her worldly pres 
 ence of mind so far as to say that she would 
 keep the horse in a neighbor's stahle for 
 twentv-i'our hours on trial, with Mr. Thumb's 
 permission ; but, in fact, she meant to buv, 
 and he knew she meant to. The deed was 
 practically done. 
 
 " What is her name, Mr. Thumb ? " asked 
 Corona, at the last moment, as Mr. Thumb 
 prepared to catch the ferry to catch the train 
 that would take him home without tin- mare. 
 
 " We called her Betty," said Mr. Thumb, 
 apologetically. 
 
 " I shall call her the Lady of Shalott," said 
 Corona, decisively. 
 
 " The what? " asked Mr. Thumb, with his 
 mouth open. " The Lady-as-she-Ought ? 
 Well. Don't know 's I ever heard a horse 
 called by that name before. Don't know but 
 it becomes her, too. '/'<>//////// called her 
 Betty ; that 's all." 
 
 " I might call her the Lady Betty, half the 
 time," said Corona, quickly, " just to reniem-
 
 THE LADY OF SHALOTT. 77 
 
 her Tommy by. She shall always be Betty 
 to you, Mr. Thumb. When do you want 
 your ready money, if I keep the horse ? I 
 shall have to go to Boston to get it. Will 
 day after to-morrow do ? " 
 
 Mr. Thumb's face lighted with the gleam 
 that never was on sea or land in Fairharbor 
 commerce. " Day after to-morrow ! " in a 
 community where the lavish, reckless habits 
 of the sea invade the mortgaged shore to an 
 extent that makes ready money a psychical 
 phenomenon, " day after to-morrow ! " 
 
 " I would n't put ye out," said Mr. Thumb, 
 hurrying, radiant, home to tell it all to Tom 
 my's mother. 
 
 " Day after to-morrow ! " said Mary. " I 'm 
 afraid it will be hot. But I '11 go with you." 
 
 " Day after to-morrow ! " echoed Puelvir. 
 " I '11 cook a cabbage and have a biled dinner, 
 while I get the chance, and nobody nigh to 
 hender." 
 
 It happened that the little family thus idly 
 went about, each repeating the words with 
 some trifling personal emphasis of her own,
 
 78 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 " Day after to-morrow ! " as each afterward 
 remembered. 
 
 " When do you want me to begin to work 
 for wages ? " asked Zero, as he took away th. 
 Lady-as-she-Ought to get her dinner. "Day 
 after to-morrow ? " 
 
 u Here *s another of them Christian Union 
 Telegrabs," said Puelvir, coming int( the par 
 lor that evening with her switch on ami her 
 white apron. " The boy wants twenty-five 
 cents, he says, for bringing of it down. I told 
 him I 'd give him five, for you supported the 
 Company, and they 'd ought to deliver their 
 own goods, like other folks do." 
 
 The telegram was from Tom. It was dated 
 in Canada, and said : 
 
 " Can have my old buggy and second har 
 ness. Welcome. Tell Patrick freight Fair- 
 harbor. Home in three weeks. TOM." 
 
 " Dear Tom ! " said Corona. " The Holy 
 Catholic Inquisition could not compel him to 
 write me a letter. He says it is so miu-li 
 cheaper to telegraph. But he does remem 
 ber."
 
 THE LADY OF SHALOTT. 79 
 
 She went singing about The Old Maid's 
 Paradise that evening ; her heart felt warm 
 and human, and what Puelvir would call 
 "like folks." She held Matthew Launcelot 
 lovingly, and told him the Lady of Shalott 
 should never turn him off the parlor furni 
 ture and the lace pillow-shams, nor even from 
 the fine white shawls he always preferred for 
 cushions on muddy- days. Matthew Launce 
 lot kissed her gratefully, and heaved a long, 
 long sigh. Those who love dogs know how 
 much these deep sighs signify in their emo 
 tional history. Matthew Launcelot was very 
 happy. Puelvir was happy, too. After her 
 dishes were done, she sat out on the rocks and 
 watched the sun go down, with a clean cook 
 ing-apron over her head. Puelvir could sing, 
 herself, when she was happy. She sang a 
 verse of a hymn she liked : 
 
 " Set ye e ee your tre a as ure i in the skyes ! 
 , Where thie e eeves break throu ongh nor steal !" 
 
 She sang on a high and solemn quaver. Tha 
 summer boarders, strolling on the bright, wet 
 beach, looked up and smiled to hear her. It
 
 80 BURGLARS IN 1\\ /,'. I />/>/;. 
 
 was a gentle, affectionate night. The waves 
 patted the grim rocks like children's fingers. 
 The sky was the color of the rose which we 
 call L<i J-'nuire. The air was fresh and 
 tender. All the outgrowth of the sea had a 
 joyous mood. Peace was in Paradise. E\ n 
 Zero went over to the stable to stroke the 
 Lady of Shalott, lest she should be homesick. 
 (If the truth must be told, the Lady resented 
 this, because Zero had been stripping mack 
 erel.) But Mary lighted a lamp, and sat 
 down in a halo of mosquitoes to write to Mr. 
 Sinuous. She missed him. This is the unfor 
 tunate difference between an old maid and a 
 young wife. Corona and Puelvir, who missed 
 nobody, felt that they had the advantage.
 
 V. 
 
 FEE-FI-FUM AND I. O. TJ. 
 
 CORONA and Mary went to Boston to get 
 Mr. Thumb's ready money for the Lady of 
 Shalott. It proved to be a very warm day. 
 The two ladies left the shore with the pas 
 sionate regret of " summer people " doomed 
 to a day in town. To put off the short, 
 straight, sturdy beach-dress, and to put on 
 flounces and a waist with a lining across the 
 shoulders ; to leave behind the shade-hat that 
 hangs like the arch of merciful heaven be 
 tween one's eyes and the July sun, and to be 
 abandoned to a piece of lace and an artificial 
 flower on top of the head ; to squeeze tanned 
 hands into tight gloves, and happy feet set 
 at ease by tennis-shoes into new boots with a 
 French heel ; to begin to grow warm in the 
 omnibus, too warm at the station, miserable 
 
 6
 
 82 BURGLARS IN PAJIAWSK. 
 
 at the first stop, desperate at Beverly, dan 
 gerous at Salem, frantic at Chelsea, and pa>t 
 jiraying for by the time one reaches Soiner- 
 ville, this is to go to town from Fail-har 
 bor in July. To gasp for one blessed breath 
 like a Cape Ann mackerel in a dory ; to find 
 one's necessary errands dwindling to an incon 
 ceivable minimum by tin- time the* open horsc- 
 rnr comes in sight of the Old South Church ; 
 to become convinced before yon turn up Tem 
 ple Place that everything von came in t';>r can 
 wait better than not till December ; to Hee to 
 Parker's and call for ice, and tell the waiti r 
 you have had a sun-stroke : to sit clin^in^ to 
 the time-table of the Eastern Division, for 
 dear life, in fierce demand for an earlier than 
 the earliest train that will take you home 
 again : to divide the blistering moniei.-- l>v 
 wondering: how the cashier and head waiter 
 
 O 
 
 bear it, and by visions of getting into your 
 bathing-clothes, and wading out, barefoot, 
 neck-deep into that great, brown, blessed wave 
 which is at this instant wasting itself in front 
 of your deserted door ; to vow that if you
 
 FEE-F1-FUM AND I. 0. U. 83 
 
 ever see that wave and that door once more, 
 the contents of the Safety Vaults of State 
 Street and the Equitable Building could not 
 tempt you to leave again till the first snow 
 storm, this is to go to town from Fairhar- 
 bor in July. 
 
 The ladies went. It was warm, very 
 warm. They found Corona's man of busi 
 ness. He looked warm, - too warm. They 
 sat and mopped and sopped and fanned and 
 looked at each other with a civil endurance 
 during the transaction of the errand. Corona 
 felt that the broker regarded it as a very small 
 errand to be troubled with on a day like that. 
 She missed Tom, who had been her usual ad 
 viser, and hoped she should make no mistake 
 which would endanger the financial interests 
 of the country. 
 
 " You see," she explained, " I am going to 
 make a purchase to-morrow that requires a 
 good deal of ready money. My bank account 
 won't meet it." 
 
 "A new portiere, perhaps? Or a Persian 
 rug ? " inquired the gentleman, smiling idly.
 
 84 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 He was an old friend of the family, and privi 
 leged to a certain amount of chaffing, in con* 
 sideration of the trouble that friendship 
 pecially a lady's friendship) is sure to cost a 
 business man. 
 
 When Corona told him that it was a new 
 horse, the business man gave his eyebrows a 
 Gothic arch. 
 
 " Brother select him for you ? " 
 
 " My brother is in Canada. I selected the 
 horse myself." 
 
 " Ah ? " said the business man. But he 
 said no more. He knew where his business 
 ended and hers began ; or, more probably, it 
 was too warm to express his reflections. They 
 bubbled and melted away into that kind 
 of inane and mute compassion with which one 
 regards other people's affairs in July in Bos 
 ton. 
 
 " I must sell a bond," said Corona, "a 
 small bond. I thought I would like to ask 
 your advice about it. I promised to pay for 
 the horse to-morrow." 
 
 " Good horse ? " asked the man of business, 
 hesitating.
 
 FEE-FI-FUM AND L O. U. 85 
 
 " I think so," said Corona. " I trusted a 
 man to do the right thing by me." 
 
 " Trusted a man ? " cried the broker, 
 forgetting himself. " About a horse ? " 
 
 " I did," firmly. " I don't know that it 
 would be any worse to be cheated trusting 
 than to be cheated suspecting. Would it ? " 
 
 " Possibly not," mused the broker. He 
 looked as if he had never thought of that. 
 
 " Assuming, of course," said Corona, " that 
 I am to be cheated anyhow." 
 
 " Oh ! yes," said the business man, prompt 
 ly, " assuming that, anyhow. But about this 
 bond ? You might sell your ' Phi Beta Kappa 
 and Alpha and Omega,' that Arizona bond, 
 you know." 
 
 " Phi Beta Kappa is a thousand-dollar bond, 
 is n't it," objected Corona. " I don't want 
 to sell a large investment." 
 
 " There 's your Horse Railroad Scrip in 
 Scatteree ; I think you have six shares of that, 
 if I remember." 
 
 " I 've forgotten where Scatteree is," 
 pleaded Corona, with humility. She was apt 
 to forget where things were.
 
 86 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 The broker reminded her that Scatteree 
 was in Yucatan. 
 
 " Or," he suggested, " you could part with 
 one of those New Jerusalem City 6s Water 
 Loan. They are selling at Dick! What's 
 New Jerusalem 6s Water Loan quoted at to 
 day ? One hundred and seventeen and three 
 quarters? You could sell for one hundred 
 and seventeen and three quarters." 
 
 " I 've no doubt I might," replied Corona, 
 looking as intelligent as possible, and trying 
 valiantly not to laugh at the expression of 
 lady-like vagueness, not unmingled with alarm, 
 on Mary's face. Mary had never been down 
 State Street before. Mr. Sinuous attended to 
 that. " But I have a fancy to hold on to the 
 New Jerusalem 6s for a while." 
 
 " In view of a rise ? " asked the broker. 
 
 " Oh ! no ; only I like the name." 
 
 " I must save that," said the broker. " I 
 must tell your brother that. He would appre 
 ciate it as much as anybody I know. Well, 
 how would von like to sell Here ! I have 
 it! Haven't von some stock in the '1m-
 
 FEE-FI-FUM AND I. 0. U. 87 
 
 mediate Alarm Company for Waking up Ser 
 vants by Electricity ' ? No ? I thought you 
 had. Hm-m-m. Have you a few shares of the 
 ' Every Man his own Correspondent ' ? That 
 concern which has patented a type-writer to 
 answer letters without dictation. That thing 
 you wind up, you know, and let it alone ; and 
 it goes off and replies to everybody in a neat 
 circular adapted to the case, and no trouble to 
 you. It 's quite an invention. It is n't on the 
 market yet ; but the shares have gone up to 
 four hundred already. It is expected to revo 
 lutionize modern society. It is especially con 
 structed with reference to autograph-hunters, 
 I am told, and people asking for advice and 
 loans. It 's a great thing. You ought to have 
 
 some." 
 
 " Let me see," added the broker, after a 
 moment's thought. " Don't you own some 
 of theFee-Fi-Fum?" 
 
 " I believe I do, a little ; I 'm not sure 
 how much. I shall be perfectly willing to 
 part with that." 
 
 The Fee-Fi-Fum and the I. 0. U. ? " 
 
 " Yes. I 'in sure I have,"
 
 88 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 " The Fee-Fi-Fum and the I. 0. U., leased 
 by the X. Y. Z. " 
 
 " Yes. I believe it is leased by the X. 
 Y. Z." 
 
 " There we have it," said the broker. 
 "You had l),-ttiT sell a $500 bond of that. 
 Have you a ivronl ? " 
 
 Yes, she had a record ; she produced it. 
 
 ' Take a duplicate copy," said the broker, 
 " iii case of accident. I '11 read it off to you. 
 I '11 trouble you to write as fast as you can : 
 ' Registered Bond, No. 30,075 of the Fee-Fi- 
 Fum and the I. O. U.' Got that? " 
 
 Yes, she had that. 
 
 " And the I. 0. U., in Dakota?" 
 
 " I had n't anything about Dakota," inter 
 rupted Corona. 
 
 " That is an important point. Add * in 
 Dakota.' You must distinguish, you know, 
 from the I. 0. U. in New Mexico. Those are 
 4s and mature in '88." 
 
 " Oh ! yes ; so I must. So they do,'' 
 Corona, with her keenest State Street cxj ; 
 sion. "I see. I have it now. I. 0. U. in 
 Dakota. Go on."
 
 FEE-FI-FUM AND I. 0. U. 89 
 
 " < Leased by the X. Y. Z. and Yankosell.' 
 Have you got the ' X. Y. Z. and Yanko 
 sell ' ? ' First Mortgage Land Grant, Non-Ex 
 empt, Redeemable in 2009. Interest payable 
 1st January at Behring's Strait.' Have you 
 got all that ? ' Nine and three tenths per cent/ 
 That 's all. Now, you just get that bond out 
 of your vaults and take it to Jump & Jiggles 
 in Merchant's Trapeze. Jump & Jiggles deal 
 in Fee-Fi-Fum and I. 0. U. more than I do. 
 They '11 do it quicker for you. You must get 
 there before two o'clock. Take a bank check, 
 and be careful of it. If anything happens 
 you don't get it sold to-day, and you don't 
 want to come in again " 
 
 " The entire rolling stock of the Fee-Fi- 
 Fum Railroad Company," observed Corona, 
 " would not tempt me to come in again this 
 summer." 
 
 " 1 don't blame you," said the broker, sadly. 
 " I would n't if I were you. In that case, your 
 Fairharbor bank will tell you how to dispose 
 of it on the spot, I 've no doubt. The Fee- 
 Fi-Fuin is as good as a national silver bill.
 
 90 BURGLAR /.V I'AllAUISE. 
 
 Almost any solid business man in Fairhurbor 
 would be glad to take it off your hands. The 
 Fee-Fi-Fum and I. 0. U. is n't often on the 
 market. People jump at it. You '11 have no 
 more trouble a little bond like this than 
 you would with a check. It 's registered, 
 which makes it perfectly safe. But you might 
 as well sell it if you have time. Don't carry 
 the cash with you. Better express whatever 
 you carry, if you know your expressman. 
 It 's safer than a lady's shopping-hag. Can 
 I do anything more for you ? My regards 
 to your brother. Good-morning. I hope 
 your horse will be wort li it. Good-morning." 
 As luck would have it, by the time the la 
 dies had stopped for Mary to get some iced 
 soda, and to match some tulle, and get a 
 paper of invisible hair-pins, and attend to 
 a few other of those imperious errands which 
 have to be done when one comes into town 
 from seashore in July, by the time Corona 
 had obtained her Fee-Fi-Fum and I. 0. U. 
 bond and reached the office of Messrs. Jump 
 & Jiggles with it, the clock was striking two,
 
 FEE-FI-FUM AND I. 0. U. 91 
 
 and Messrs. Jump & Jiggles had gone. At 
 least, Mr. Jump had gone ; he was half-way 
 to the Nahant boat. Mr. Jiggles was just 
 closing the door, fanning himself with his hat 
 as he did so, in the blasphemous kind of way 
 in which men do use a fan, as if it were a 
 cultivated substitute for a wicked word. But 
 Mr. Jiggles said that they never did business 
 (in July) after the clock struck. 
 
 So Corona (remembering the good broker's 
 advice) decided to send her registered bond 
 home by the expressman. It was the same ex 
 pressman who had brought Matthew Launce- 
 lot to her house when Tom first presented 
 him to her, and before the dog ran away and 
 was bought over again by Mary, and given 
 to his mistress the second time, which Mary 
 has never known to this day. So Corona 
 naturally felt that she could trust the express 
 man ; he seemed intimately bound up in her 
 family history. The expressman therefore 
 took her bond and promised to deliver it that 
 evening ; and the ladies took the next train 
 home with fervent speed.
 
 92 BURGLARS IN PAIiAUlSE. 
 
 As they came in sight of the cottage, full 
 into the force of the live east wind, which 
 hroke against their scarlet, dusty faces as if 
 it had been a great wave itself, all the blazing 
 city seemed to recede from their consciousness 
 like a dream of a vast conflagration. 
 
 " I am becoming a native," said Corona. 
 " I flop back to this coast like a Cape Ann 
 fish into the sea. Do you suppose that broker 
 is sizzling there yet ? " 
 
 "It has been a little warm," a-sented 
 Mary, in her ladylike way. She felt that Co 
 rona overstated things. 
 
 Oh ! but it was cool in Paradise ! It wa* 
 heavenly cool in Paradise. All the brown 
 blinds were drawn ; a warm and mellow gloom 
 filled the gray parlor and the green bedroom. 
 The old muslin curtains stirred delicately at 
 the open windows, like sails in a slowly mov 
 ing pleasure boat. The flowers and fern^ 
 about the house seemed grateful for the 
 shade and water. The m<>d< st uphold <-ry 
 and all the little, simple devices of this plain 
 home were in cool summer tints, and met one 
 restfally.
 
 FEE-FI-FUM AND I. O. U. 93 
 
 Matthew Launcelot was asleep (on his back, 
 with all four paws in the air) on a large, em 
 broidered linen towel, which he had dragged 
 from the towel-rack and put directly in the 
 draught on the straw carpet in the middle of 
 the guest-room floor. He looked at least 
 cool. Outside, Zero had the Lady of Shalott 
 tied to the clothes-post in the east wind to 
 feed upon the short cool grass. Puelvir, in a 
 light muslin dress, with an old-fashioned green 
 sprig on it, sat by the kitchen window with 
 the fire out. Comforted by her cabbage, she 
 was embroidering a linen night-dress, which 
 she kept for fancy work ; she said she wanted 
 one decent night-gownd to die in ; she was 
 always in good spirits when she was working 
 on this garment. As the ladies, fresh from 
 their bath, roamed about the house in dainty 
 deshabille, they could hear her singing as she 
 sang before : 
 
 " Set ye-e-ee your re-a-as-ure i-in the 
 skyes, where thie-ie-eeves break thro-ough, 
 nor " 
 
 " There 's the expressman ! " cried Puelvir,
 
 94 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 interrupting herself at this point. " He 's 
 brought a yellow package. It looks like an 
 overgrowed big telegraph. And land ! if he 
 ain't got my peddler sett in' alongside of him 
 on the front seat." 
 
 " Who, pray, is your peddler ? " asked h-r 
 mistress, hurrying down to receive her r 
 istered bond with an agitation \\hich sin- 
 ilattered herself passed for masterly uncon 
 cern. 
 
 " Oh ! just a peddler come peddlin' to 
 day," replied Puelvir. " He peddled a patent 
 kind of scented soft soap to save a girl scrub- 
 bin* of blankets and bed quilts, and a sort of 
 dog-food he wanted me to buy for Matthew 
 Launcelot. He was a very gentlemanly ped 
 dler ; he said I reminded him of a girl he 
 knew that died, that he was fond of. I told 
 him that mought be, but you was n't to home, 
 and I could n't have nothin' to do with him 
 in your absence. He was sot to come in and 
 get a drink of ice water " 
 
 " Mercy, Puelvir ! I hope you did n't let 
 him?"
 
 FEE-FI-FUM AND I. 0. U. 95 
 
 " What do you take me for, Miss Corona ? " 
 said Puelvir, with dignity. " He sot on that 
 there coal-bin, and there, I says, you may set. 
 I don't receive strange gentlemen when she 
 ain't to hum. So he sot on the coal-bin and 
 I sot on the steps, and the dog he sot between 
 us, and he raised the cannibal islands. I 
 never see a creetur holler in my born days as 
 that creetur hollered at that there peddler. 
 He said he was a handsome dog, 'n Matthew 
 up 'n at his trousers leg 'n bit a piece out, 
 they was nice trousers, of a checkered pattern, 
 and become him very well, and then he 
 said the dog was a dam puppy, and then he 
 went away. He said he was tired, and was 
 agoin' to get somebody to give him a lift over 
 to the city. That 's him. The expressman 's 
 picked him up. Yes, it 's him." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Corona, coming out, with an 
 air of supernatural lightness. " I see you 
 have brought my package from the dye- 
 house." 
 
 " What 'm ? " said the expressman. 
 
 " My package from the dye-house," re 
 peated Corona, severely.
 
 96 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 " Oh ! yes, inarm, yes ! I see. I Ve got 
 your package from the dye-house all right. 
 In a hurry for it, I s'pose ? " 
 
 The expressman winked as he handed orer 
 the Fee-Fi-Fum bond to the lady. It was 
 ill-mannered, not to say dangerous, in the 
 expressman ; but he did wink visibly. The 
 peddler, sitting beside him, did not notice 
 this, however ; which was a great relief to 
 Corona. The long, yellow bond envelope, 
 sealed and resealed with the great money-de 
 partment seal of the great Adams Express 
 Company, passed from the hands of the ex 
 press-driver to the hands of the lady. But 
 the peddler, unfamiliar with such matters, re 
 garded it idly. If the seal of Lewando or 
 Barrett thus protected a dyed ribbon or an 
 old piece of lace, what was that to a peddler 
 of dog-food and scented soft soap ? 
 
 He asked Corona if she would purchase 
 any soap ; but said it was of no consequence, 
 when she declined. He said his dog-food 
 But after this he said no more. There came 
 a soft pattering upon the nncarncted floor, an
 
 FEE-F1-FUM AND I. 0. U. 97 
 
 unceremonious whisk of Puelvir's petticoats, 
 a swift glimpse below them of a dark, of 
 fended, black-and-tan countenance, framed in 
 white and green sprigged muslin and Mat 
 thew Launcelot sprang, with one terrible 
 snarl, upon that peddler of dog -food and 
 scented soap. Over the wheel, into the wag 
 on, past the expressman, upon the peddler, 
 the terrier, in a lightning photograph, leaped 
 convulsively. The expressman laughed and 
 the peddler swore ; but Matthew was in ear 
 nest. The horses started, the wagon reeled 
 over the big bowlders, and rattled violently 
 away but Matthew Launcelot held on. 
 
 " He 's gone out of sight with 'em ! " cried 
 Puelvir, greatly excited. " I '11 bet he '11 fol- 
 ler that peddler to prison, or the gallows, but 
 he '11 have another mouthful of them checked 
 pantaloons. It 's too bad ; for they did be 
 come him." 
 
 It was late that evening when Matthew 
 Launcelot returned. He seemed tired and 
 sleepy. He brought home a large piece of 
 green checked pantaloon cloth, which he wor-
 
 98 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 ried continually, as if it had been a rat that 
 would n't die ; and, finally, hid it in the china- 
 closet, in an empty Albert biscuit box he 
 knew of. He tried to put the cover on, but 
 he was too sleepy. 
 
 But Corona paid no attention to Matthew 
 Launcelot. She and Mary sat in the parlor, 
 with the door shut, and held the long yellow 
 envelope, sealed with the seal of the Adams 
 Express Company. 
 
 " What in the world am I to do to-night," 
 demanded Corona, " with this Fee-Fi-Fum 
 and I. 0. U. Registered Bond, leased by the 
 X. Y. Z. and Yankosell?"
 
 VI. 
 
 THE BURGLARY. 
 
 IT is a matter of familiar observation that 
 great truths are epidemic. Discoveries go in 
 the atmosphere. The conditions of intellectual 
 climate, which lead the human mind to work 
 in a given direction at a given time and place, 
 compel the other human mind across the world 
 or across the village to the same intuition, 
 inspiration, or deduction, at the corresponding 
 season. While the ladies in the parlor were 
 counting out their money, the servants in the 
 kitchen of the Old Maids' Paradise, if not 
 strictly eating bread and honey (doughnuts, 
 to be precise, by means of which Puelvir was 
 in the habit of bribing Zero to share with her 
 the burdens of domestic life) Puelvir and 
 Zero were conducting the following dialogue. 
 
 Zero had wandered in, with something on
 
 100 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 what he called his mind. But Zero was nat 
 urally reticent. 
 
 " Puelvir," he said, after the sixth dough 
 nut had lubricated his reserve, " where does 
 she keep her money ? " 
 
 " Who put you up to that ? " asked Puelvir, 
 dropping a goblet, and giving the boy a look 
 which would have done justice to Matthew 
 Launcelot when he saw the peddler. 
 
 " I heerd some boys up-street sayin' she 
 must have a sight. They asked me where she 
 kep' it," replied Zero, in his listless, honest, 
 stupid way. 
 
 " You just tell 'm," said Puelvir, " she ain't 
 got none. Never has none. She 's poor, Miss 
 Corona is, only she 's too proud to let on. You 
 tell 'em I said so." 
 
 " Yes," said Zero, gently. " I '11 tell 'em 
 you said so." 
 
 " She keeps all her money in New York," 
 added Puelvir, nonchalantly. " When she 's 
 got a bill to pay she has just enough come 
 <:i to pay that bill, and pays it right away 
 before supper. She has it come by ex
 
 THE BURGLARY. 101 
 
 It comes by telephone. All her money comes 
 by special arrangement with the Telephone 
 Company. It 's a new invention they have ; 
 her brother, he got 'em to do it for her. They 
 don't do it for anybody else. Why, she 's 
 so hard up she has to borry of me. I lent 
 her two dollars yesterday; Miss Mary's the 
 same. She had to get fifty cents of me to pay 
 the banana man. All your wages and mine 
 come by telephone, and there can't nobody get 
 the cash of 'em but herself. That 's what she 
 bought a horse for ; to go over to get 'em, she 
 has to go so often. You just tell them boys, 
 now, won't you ? " 
 
 " Yee-es," drawled Zero, " if they arx me, 
 I '11 tell 'em. I thought myself she must keep 
 as much as twenty-six or seven dollars in the 
 house. But I '11 tell 'em." 
 
 But Corona and Mary in the parlor were 
 consulting in whispers. The bond of the Fee- 
 Fi-Fum and I. 0. U. lay upon Corona's lap. 
 
 Mary suggested that they telegraph to Mr. 
 Thumb to come over and get it that night ; 
 she thought it would be such a relief. But
 
 102 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 Corona replied that Mr. Thumb lived in North 
 East Carriesquall, and that the telegraph had 
 not reached in fact, would never reach 
 to North East Carriesquall. They were in for 
 it, she said, and must harhor that bond to 
 night, at all events. Neither of the ladies 
 felt any fear of anything happening to the 
 bond, unless, as Mary said, the house took fire ; 
 but the novelty of sleeping in the house with 
 a registered bond oppressed them. It was as 
 if they had too much company, and no spare 
 room. 
 
 " I wish I *d asked the broker where to 
 put it," observed Corona. " He might have 
 known." 
 
 " What is the I. 0. U. ? " asked Mary, med 
 itatively. " What does it stand for ? " 
 
 " I don't know," confessed Corona. 
 
 " And what is Yankosell ? What does that 
 mean?" 
 
 " I did know that," said Corona, bright 
 ening. " But I 've forgotten." 
 
 " Does n't anybody know ? " asked Mary. 
 
 " I never heard of anybody that did," said
 
 THE BURGLARY. 103 
 
 Corona. " I dare say the Treasurer does. 
 I '11 ask Tom. What should you think of 
 putting this bond in the parlor stove-pipe ? " 
 
 But Mary objected that there might be a 
 cold northeast storm in the morning, and Puel- 
 vir might light a fire. Mary suggested taking a 
 few nails out of the carpet and slipping it un 
 der. But Corona thought that had been tried 
 too often. She believed the house always did 
 take fire when that was done. 
 
 They discussed the question of hiding it 
 behind the books in the library ; but Corona's 
 sea-side library consisted of a book-case with 
 two shelves and a top that held the dictionary. 
 Corona proposed taking the bond to her own 
 bedroom ; but Mary said that was tempting 
 Providence to commit a murder. Mary added 
 that she thought this was a very dangerous 
 way to live without any man about ; and 
 that she had had a letter from Mr. Sinuous, 
 saying he wanted her to come home this week. 
 
 Corona asked if it seemed to be any easier 
 living without a woman about. But Mary 
 did not see the force in what she considered 
 a feeble joke cast at a serious matter.
 
 104 r.l HGLARS l.\ PARADISE. 
 
 She talked a great deal that evening about 
 the loneliness of Corona's unprotected life. 
 
 " Unprotected fiddle-de-dee ! " said Corona, 
 with more spirit than politeness. 
 
 After much conversation and contemplation, 
 it wjis decided how to dispose of theregisten tl 
 bond of the Fee-Fi-Fum and I. 0. U., for that 
 one night ; and Mr. Thumb would be on the 
 spot early on that " day after to-morrow " to 
 which a single night's repose would now 
 swiftly bring this excited and wearied family. 
 The bond was put into a drawer in Corona's 
 desk, which stood at the head of the sofa in 
 the parlor a natural and suitable place, 
 which both ladies approved of. Corona locked 
 the drawer and took the key, and said they 
 would say nothing to anybody not even to 
 Puelvir. They locked up the house with 
 their usual fidelity ; perhaps with a little more 
 than that ; but nothing was done about clothes 
 lines, or hose, or hot water, or any of those 
 modern improvements in burglar alarms, be 
 cause that would involve explaining to Puelvir 
 that they were sleeping in the same house
 
 THE BURGLARY. 105 
 
 with a $500 registered bond. They were all 
 tired and went early to bed. 
 
 " Where is Matthew Launcelot ? " asked 
 Corona, remembering at half-past nine that 
 she had not seen the dog that evening. 
 
 " I -don't know whether he 's dead or deef," 
 said Puelvir, carelessly. " Or mebbe he 
 mought be tired wrastlin' with that scented 
 soft-soap peddler ; but I can't wake the critter 
 nohow. He just dropped down alongside the 
 Albert biscuit box in the China closet, with 
 one of his paws see ! laid acrosst that 
 piece of green-check he brought home, and 
 there he lays. He 's ben asleep since ever 
 he come home. I tried to wake him to put 
 him to bed ; b.ut you mought as well set out 
 to wake Methuselah's mother-in-law. It ain't 
 no moral use." 
 
 " Poor little fellow ! " said Corona, idly. 
 " He does seem tired. Let him sleep." 
 
 But Mary's mind continued to dwell on Co 
 rona's unprotected situation. Mary's mind 
 sometimes worked in a way peculiar to herself. 
 When Corona was passing into her first cool
 
 106 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 dream, at the close of that warm and wor 
 ried day, she was startled by hearing her door 
 open (it was not locked), and Mary glided in, 
 with all her long, bright hair down over her 
 ruffled and embroidered night-dress, looking 
 in the moonlight (for it was moonlight) like 
 a lovely etching on mellow Japanese paper. 
 
 " Corona," said Mary, " I just came in to 
 ask a question. What has ever become 
 of- -?" 
 
 She mentioned a name at which Corona's 
 placid, healthy heart gave one bound, and then 
 stood still. 
 
 " He 's out West somewhere, I believe," she 
 answered, with magnificent carelessness. 
 
 " Oh ! " said Mary. " I did n't know but 
 you 'd kept that up, somehow, and not cared 
 to talk about it." 
 
 " I don't know what has become of him, 
 I 'm sure," replied Corona. " I did not think 
 it best to keep anything up." 
 
 " I always thought you made a mistake, 
 dear," said Mary, stooping to kiss her in the 
 faint light. Her pretty hair fell over Corona's
 
 THE BURGLARY. 107 
 
 face, as she stooped. " I hoped you had n't 
 cut everything entirely off." 
 
 " Atropos cuts," said Corona, laughing 
 as women laugh when they would n't cry for 
 the world and all that is therein. " All we 
 do is to look on. Don't get to thinking 
 about my old flirtations, Mollie, at this time of 
 night. There ! Go back to bed, you pretty 
 creature, and go to sleep." 
 
 So Mary did ; but Corona lay long awake ; 
 too long ; so long that she was quite spent 
 at last, from sleeplessness and for other rea 
 sons, and slept, when she slept, almost as 
 heavily as Matthew Launcelot down below 
 there, prone by the Albert biscuit box, with 
 one paw across the green-checked mouthful 
 of the peddler's pantaloons. 
 
 They had a late breakfast next morning, 
 and the little family collected leisurely. Mary 
 and Puelvir were in excellent spirits ; but Co 
 rona felt tired, and Matthew Launcelot was de 
 pressed and non-committal. He still slept a 
 good deal, and treated his breakfast of mack 
 erel and griddle-cakes with an ill-concealed 
 contempt.
 
 108 BURGLAHS IN PARADISE. 
 
 The ladies were still at the breakfast-table 
 talking lazily ; Corona had sent word to Zero 
 to have the Lady of Shalott brought round to 
 the clothes-post at ten o'clock ; Mary had said 
 that she believed she must go home before 
 Sunday. She had just asked what time Mr. 
 Thumb was coming for his ready money, when 
 Puelvir flung open the kitchen door without 
 ceremony, and rushed into the dining-room. 
 
 " Land, land, land, land ! " cried Puelvir. 
 " Somebodv 's broke in ! " 
 
 / 
 
 " Broken in where ? " asked her mistress, 
 without interest. Puelvir's burglars were be 
 coming an old story. 
 
 " Broke in here ! That there two-foot 
 winder is smashed in. I never see it till this 
 minute ; and one of my squash-pies is ate, 
 and some tomayto sauce. There 's been bur 
 glars in this house, this livin' night, as I say 
 these words, or I 'm a widder with five, and 
 left with a property ! " 
 
 Corona and Mary looked at each oilier. 
 Corona turned pale, but she commanded hri- 
 self . She felt in a confused way that some
 
 THE BURGLARY. 109 
 
 one must command somebody. She pushed 
 back her chair quietly, went into her little 
 gray parlor, and up to the desk. 
 
 Every drawer in the desk but one was taken 
 out and overturned. A melange of letters 
 and grocers' books lay upon the floor. The 
 drawer which had not been taken out was 
 the one which had contained the $500 regis 
 tered bond. It was quite empty. 
 
 The first thing which Corona did was to 
 call Puelvir the only creature in the world 
 on whom she really depended. Instinct went 
 out to that one in the tension of emergency. 
 She briefly explained to Puelvir the dreadful 
 fact. Puelvir herself turned very pale ; then 
 the color came and came in waves over her 
 gaunt, high-cheeked, homely face. 
 
 " Miss Corona, if you 'd told me, I 'd ha set 
 up all night long to watch your property ! 
 And you KNOW I would ! " 
 
 But Puelvir' s rebuke stopped here, for that 
 moment and for all time. She felt that her 
 mistress had been punished enough. 
 
 The three women shut and locked the doors
 
 110 BURGLARS IN PARADISI-. 
 
 and searched the house ; but the bond was 
 gone. They sifted the mass of papers with ter 
 rible conscientiousness ; but the bond was 
 gone. Puelvir would seize on something, 
 and say, " Ain't this it, now ? " and Corona 
 would reply that that was last year's fish bill. 
 Mary would say she believed she had found 
 it, and Corona would say, " That ? t Oh ! 
 that 's nothing but an offer from a widower." 
 Then Mary would snatch up something else 
 and say this must be it, and Corona would 
 admit that it was a rejected Sunday-school 
 book from a New Orleans firm. Then Puelvir 
 would declare she 'd got it now, and Co 
 rona would shake her head and file away her 
 fire-insurance policy. Once Corona thought 
 she had found the bond herself ; but it proved 
 to be Tom's doctor's bill for the baby from 
 New Year's to April Fool's Day. The values 
 were so nearly equivalent that the mistake 
 was natural. But the bond was gone. They 
 looked up the stove-pipe ; they ripped the car 
 pets ; they took every book out of the book 
 case (this was Mary's idea) ; but the bond was
 
 THE BURGLARY. Ill 
 
 gone. They examined the pantry, and the 
 two-foot window, the squash-pie plate, and the 
 tomato dish. But the bond was gone. A red 
 lead pencil and a piece of tobacco lay upon 
 the woodpile. These were the only traces left 
 by the burglar. The front door was found 
 unlocked. The intruder had entered by the 
 wood-shed window, helped himself to the con 
 tents of the larder, wandered freely about the 
 lower story of the cottage, passed safely by 
 Matthew Launcelot, who had offered no per 
 sonal objections 
 
 " Where is that dog, now ? " asked Corona, 
 in a voice destitute of affection. 
 
 " Layin' on your white muslin wrapper 
 the one I j ust done up in your bed-room, 
 sleepin' like a cherubim on a monyment," said 
 Puelvir. " He 's slep like the sperits of the 
 just made perfect ever since I shooed him 
 out the china closet come breakfast time." 
 
 The burglar, it seemed, having passed by 
 this dangerous animal without peril, had leis 
 urely rummaged the contents of the table- 
 drawers (Corona was convinced that he had
 
 112 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 read the widower's love-letter by the circum 
 stantial evidence of a little whiff of ci^ar 
 ashes which tumbled out as she picked it 
 up) he had helped himself to the $500 
 bond, comfortably let himself out of the front 
 door; and that was all. 
 
 " Did you lock the drawer ? " asked Mary. 
 
 " Why, yes. Don't you remember ? Here 
 is the key in my pocket." 
 
 " Did you lock the upper drawer ? " asked 
 Puelvir. 
 
 " I never thought of the upper drawer ! " 
 wailed Corona. 
 
 " And he just pulled it out, and tucked his 
 hand into the one below, and took that there 
 money out, and no trouble to nobody ! He 
 war n't even put to the onconvenience of 
 breakin a lock to git it ! " 
 
 " Exactly so. That is just what he did," 
 assented Corona. 
 
 She laughed. The thing struck her so that 
 she could n't have helped it, if it had cost 
 her all she owned. She rolled over on the 
 sofa, and laughed till she cried.
 
 THE BURGLARY. 113 
 
 " She always takes trouble that way," said 
 Mary, without laughing. " Come away, Puel- 
 vir, and let us consult what it is best to do. 
 Don't you think I 'd better telegraph for Mr. 
 Sinuous ? " 
 
 But there was no doubt about it. The 
 Old Maid's Paradise, taken by a thief in the 
 night, had been ingeniously robbed ; and 
 that Fee-Fi-Fum and I. 0. U. registered bond, 
 leased by the X. Y. Z. and Yankosell, was 
 gone. 
 
 At this moment Puelvir came in to say that 
 the new horse was waiting outside for some 
 body to go to ride with him ; Zero was tryin' 
 to make the critter eat an apple-tart and a 
 piece of cold tongue ; and that Mr. Thumb 
 was turnin' in the gate, come for his ready 
 money. 
 
 
 
 "Take her back, if you want to, Mr. 
 Thumb. Take the Lady Betty back, and 
 keep her till you find out if I have any money 
 to pay you. You may feel better to do so." 
 
 " You mean, you think I would n't trust 
 
 8
 
 114 BURGLARS I .\ 1'Mi.MHXE. 
 
 you with my horse, marm, long 's you wanted 
 to keep her on trial, if you like her ? " 
 
 " Oh, no ; we would n't put it so. But 
 I 'm bankrupt to-day, you see. I can't give 
 you your ready money, as I said I would. If 
 I should never recover it, I don't see how 
 I 'm going to pay for the horse at all. I 
 never was robbed before. I cannot form 
 any plans." 
 
 "I calc'lated," said Mr. Thumb, after a 
 silence, "I calc'lated to leave the mare jest 
 where she is till you send her back to North 
 East Carriesquall." 
 
 " Oh, you '11 recover your bonds," said an 
 unfamiliar voice, with easy assurance. " Of 
 course you '11 recover your bond. It 's too 
 thin not to be recovered." 
 
 Corona looked up in alarm. A strange 
 man stood in the parlor. He had entered by 
 the back door, strolled through the kitchen 
 and the dining-room without the least trace 
 of what could be called hesitation, and pushed 
 his way, unannounced, to the centre of that
 
 THE BURGLARY. 115 
 
 little group of burgled people. As he spoke, 
 he took an easy chair, and made himself at 
 home without the superfluity of an invitation. 
 After some thought, he removed his hat, with 
 the reluctance of a man who is not habitu 
 ally placed where he feels obliged to do so, 
 and glanced agreeably around him. 
 
 " Really," began Corona, " I have n't the 
 pleasure " 
 
 But Puelvir was before her. Puelvir made 
 one bound across the room, gripped the 
 stranger with both her powerful hands, and 
 before the ferocity of her intentions occurred 
 to anybody, shook the man (and he was a 
 big man, too) till his teeth chattered in his 
 head and his eyes glared from their sockets. 
 
 " Be you the feller ? " she demanded. 
 " Be you the burglar that burgled this here 
 house?" 
 
 " Why, my dear young woman " gasped 
 the stranger. 
 
 " I 'm not your dear young woman ! " re 
 torted Puelvir, virtuously. "P ain't nobody's 
 dear young woman. Never w.as. Never will 
 be. Be you the burg "
 
 116 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 " Look a here," said the visitor, releasing 
 himself with a practiced thrust which sent 
 Puelvir sitting down hard upon the rejected 
 Sunday-school book and the widower's love- 
 letter, " I am the Fairharbor police."
 
 vn. 
 
 ME. PUSHETT. 
 
 <e OH ! " said the mistress of the burgled 
 cottage, doubtfully, to the Fairharbor police 
 man. " We are very much obliged to you. 
 How did you know about it ? " 
 
 " Know about it ! " echoed the policeman. 
 " There ain't a lobster nor a stripped mackerel 
 in the city don't know about it by this time. 
 Know about it, I should say ! Why, it hap 
 pened as much as an hour ago, did n't it ? " 
 
 " It is just about an hour since we discov 
 ered our loss," replied Corona. Already she 
 perceived that it would be best to suppress 
 surprise at anything that might happen now 
 in any direction. The robbery had added this 
 contribution to her stock of worldly knowl 
 edge before she had left the room in which it 
 occurred.
 
 118 BURGLARS IN PAR ADI si:. 
 
 " Now," began the policeman, immediately, 
 " show me the premises. My name, by the 
 way, is Pushett." 
 
 Corona meekly obeyed Mr. Pushett. He 
 was a very tall policeman, and he kept bump 
 ing his head against the low ceilings of the 
 Old Maid's Paradise, whose sheltered walls 
 had never known a guest like this before. 
 The policeman examined the two-foot win 
 dow ; he pocketed the red pencil and piece 
 of tobacco ; he studied the squash-pie plate 
 with a professional manner for a long time ; 
 he gave close attention to the tomato dish. 
 He remarked, at intervals, that she would cer 
 tainly recover her bond. He said the red 
 pencil was a very important clew. He said 
 the pie-plate indicated that the chap had a 
 good appetite, and was fond of squash-pie ; 
 he said these were both excellent clews. He 
 did not value the tobacco so highly, because 
 so many gentlemen were smokers. He rum 
 maged the house thoroughly, up-stairs and 
 down. In reply to Corona's protest that the 
 burglar had n't been up-stairs, he asked her
 
 MR. PUSHETT. 119 
 
 how she knew ? He gave special attention 
 to the spare room, pleasantly stating that he 
 thought the fellow might have slept there. 
 He criticised the defenses of the doors and 
 windows, as being arranged by women-folks, 
 and all you could expect. He examined the 
 desk and the heap of papers ; he seemed in 
 terested in the widower's love - letter, and 
 advised Corona to put her insurance policy in 
 a safe place. 
 
 " Didn't lock the upper drawers, did you ? " 
 with a slow grin. " Made it easy as you 
 could for him, did n't you ? " 
 
 " I tried to," observed Corona, with some 
 spirit. 
 
 " That 's right. They most always do," 
 replied the policeman. " One man I knew 
 took 'n put every dollar he was worth in a 
 safe in his house, and kept it there a year, 
 and he had n't any bolt to his front door, and 
 one night four masked men just took a nip 
 per and some crow-bars and turned the key 
 as easy as you 'd take a cork out of a homoe 
 opathy bottle, and took that safe out on the
 
 120 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 crow-bar and carried it into an empty lot 
 and blew it open, and made off with cvi TV 
 cent there was in it, and nobody the wiser till 
 inoniin'." 
 
 " I hope the poor man recovered his prop 
 erty? "said Corona, eagerly, with that sud 
 den widening of the sympathy which conn-s 
 from experience. 
 
 " Well, n-no," admitted Mr. Push-tt. "I 
 can't say he did recover anything in that 
 case. I believe it has never been found." 
 
 " Nor the burglars, either ? " 
 
 " Oh, no ! Nor the burglars either. In 
 that case." 
 
 Corona asked the policeman why he felt so 
 confident that the property would be recov 
 ered in her case. Oh ! this, he said, was a 
 very simple affair. This was altogether too 
 thin. All he 'd ask was one good clew, and 
 he would undertake to see the property back 
 inside of a month. This was very encour 
 ing. And Corona and Mary thought Mr. 
 Pushett quite an agreeable policeman. 
 
 " I thought you said the tomayto dish was 
 a clew," sniffed Puelvir.
 
 MR. PUSHETT. 121 
 
 " It was the squash-pie plate," corrected 
 the policeman, with majesty. He and Puel- 
 vir did not get on at all. " I referred to the 
 pie-plate. It is an excellent clew so far as it 
 goes. It would be well to have something 
 more as you might say more illumina 
 tive. But these are professional matters, and 
 not easy to explain. Now, Madam," said Mr. 
 Pushett, waving Puelvir out of the subject, 
 and producing his note-book and pencil, with 
 an air of scholarly absorption. " I want the 
 details of this case, if you please ; all of 'em. 
 Name of the bond ? " 
 
 " Fee-Fi-Fum and I. 0. U.," replied Co 
 rona, promptly. She knew it by heart, 
 now, 
 
 " Past all doubting, truly, 
 A knowledge greater than loss could dim." 
 
 " The Fee-Fi-Fum and I. 0. U. $500 bond. 
 Registered. Leased by the X. Y. Z. and 
 Yanko " - 
 
 " Hold on a minute. That seems to be a 
 fourteen-barreled bond. 4 Yanko ' 
 
 " Sell ; X. Y. Z. and Yankosell. In Da-
 
 l'2'2 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 kota. Be sure you write in Dakota. It 's 
 important to distinguish from the Yankosell 
 in New Mexico, which are fours, and mature 
 in '88." 
 
 " Did I understand you this bond matures 
 in '88?" 
 
 " Oh, no ! It 's the New Mexico bond that 
 matures in '88. It 's a very important point." 
 
 " I don't see what that has to do with your 
 Fee-Fi-Fum," objected Mr. Pushett. 
 
 " Neither do I," said Corona, helplessly. 
 " I never did. But the broker told me it was 
 very important. I think you 'd better put it 
 down." So Mr. Pushett put it down. 
 
 " Mature in '88. Is that all ? No ? Fire 
 away, then. We have n't any time to lose. 
 A burglar might get to Canada by the time 
 a man got this bond recorded. No. 30,075. 
 Land Grant. First Mortgage. Non-Exempt. 
 Redeemable in 2000. I 've got so far. 2009. 
 Interest collected 1st January, at Behring's 
 Strait. Nine and three-tenths per cent. 
 There. You don't mean to say that 's all ? 
 Discourages me a little. Any fellow who 's
 
 MR. PUSPIETT. 123 
 
 had the luck to get such a bond as that is 
 likely to be overtaken by old age or the gal 
 lows before he can read it. Now then," pro 
 ceeded Mr. Pushett, " allow me to ask you 
 a few necessary professional questions. I '11 
 make 'em few as possible. Where did you 
 ladies sleep last night ? Sleep well ? Apt to 
 sleep well ? What kept you awake ? What 
 did you eat for supper ? Callers in the even 
 ing ? Who was they ? What was the ther 
 mometer on the piazza ? What in your 
 room ? Was the clock wound up ? Had you 
 read the evening paper ? What train did 
 you take from Boston ? How many times 
 have you been to Boston this summer ? Are 
 you taxed in Fairharbor ? Are you on the 
 voting list? What was the price agreed upon 
 for your house ? What are your views on 
 Prohibition ? Are you a woman suffragist ? 
 Why did you send your bond home by ex 
 press ? Which express ? Driver alone ? 
 Who was with him ? Did you do much 
 shopping in Boston ? Who 's your broker ? 
 Where 's your brother ? If you 'd voted at
 
 124 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 the last Presidential election, should you have 
 been a Mugwump ? What is your receipt for 
 sponge cake ? Did you notice which way 
 the wind blew last night ? Lost a paper of 
 tacks in the last local robbery ? Easily 
 scared ? Keep fire arms ? Many gentlemen 
 callers at your place ? Ain't keeping com 
 pany with anybody, are you ? Do you own 
 a dog?" 
 
 This last question brought Matthew Laun- 
 celot to the foreground. Puelvir carried him 
 into the parlor in her arms. Matthew exhib 
 ited little interest in the family misfortunes. 
 He was still disgracefully sleepy. Puelvir 
 stood him up on all fours, and the dc>^ 
 winked and blinked at the policeman and 
 toppled over and sat down gaping. He pre 
 sented at that moment as few of the points of 
 a reliable family watch-dog as any reasonable 
 mind could demand. 
 
 " Tan terrier, too," mused the policeman, 
 " and good breed. What 's that the dog 's 
 worryin' between his paws ? " 
 
 Puelvir hastened to explain that it was a
 
 MR. PUSHETT. 125 
 
 piece of the pantaloons of the peddler of the 
 dog-food and scented soft soap. She told the 
 story from her point of view, with comments 
 and addenda ; but she told the story. The 
 policeman asked a question or two ; mused 
 for a moment or two ; then across his coun 
 tenance there passed a sudden professional 
 glow. He stooped over Matthew Launcelot 
 seductively, and tried to take away from him 
 the green-checked mouthful of woolen cloth. 
 But Matthew's jaws, with a dogged snarl, 
 closed upon the fingers of the defender of 
 the laws. They closed quickly and they 
 closed hard. Matthew's jaws could shut like 
 a patent self-closing safety-vault door. The 
 policeman withdrew his fingers with a mut 
 tered exclamation : 
 
 "Ma dam!" he hesitated just a little 
 between the svllables while he tied his hand- 
 
 / 
 
 kerchief about his bleeding hand. " You 
 have an excellent dog there. He 's got your 
 clew. He has been drugged, tremendously 
 drugged ; dog-food, I should say ! I am sur 
 prised he is alive. The peddler was the thief.
 
 126 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 Soft soap, he said, did he ? The peddler is 
 the burglar, and that piece of pantaloon stuil 
 will track him down anywhere in North 
 America. Take care of your dog. He will 
 be needed as a witness. It is a very neat 
 case. You will certainly recover your prop 
 erty. I advise you to have some circulars 
 printed immediately. It won't cost you 
 much. Better have five hundred. We '11 
 distribute for you. I 'd offer a pretty tol 
 erable reward, if I was you. I '11 keep the 
 red pencil. I '11 thank you for that pie-plate ; 
 it had better be kept at the office. If any 
 of you ladies can separate that dog and the 
 peddler's remains, I '11 thank you for tlint. 
 We have an admirable chain of clews. Good 
 morning." 
 
 As soon as the policeman had gone, Corona 
 said she would act upon his advice, and im 
 mediately get the circulars printed, which 
 were not to cost anything, and which would 
 offer a tolerable reward. So she ordered the 
 Lady of Shalott (with Tom's buggy and the 
 second harness), to drive over to the printer's.
 
 MR. PUSHETT. 127 
 
 She said what a comfort it was to own a 
 horse, and Zero appeared at that moment at 
 the front door, with his hat on, to say that 
 the mare had lost a shoe off her sou' by sou'- 
 west hind foot, and all the rest was loose, 
 and she 'd got to go to the blacksmith's. 
 Zero thought it would take two hours, and 
 that the best way would be for him to ride 
 her over. 
 
 " I bet nobody '11 burgle this house to 
 night," saidPuelvir, grimly, when her mistress 
 and the Lady of Shalott returned from the 
 printer's at six o'clock that evening. " I 've 
 bought a pound more of long shingle nails. 
 I 've druv one in most everywhere a nail could 
 be drove. I 've got my fire up and three ket 
 tles bilin', and my hose on, and a row of 
 empty buckets setting alongside my bed. I 'm 
 ready for 'em." 
 
 In vain Corona protested that of all nights 
 in a lifetime this was the safest night in the 
 Old Maid's Paradise ; that she would leave 
 the doors open to-night, and all the windows, 
 without a tremor ; that no family on the face
 
 128 BURGLARS IN PARADISIC. 
 
 of the earth was safer than the family that 
 had just been robbed. Puelvir was firm. She 
 was almost frightened. Mary was altogether 
 so. Mary begged so hard for a man to sleep 
 in the house that Corona scornfully yielded 
 the point ; and old Father Morrison was to\\v.l 
 in, and tucked away on a sofa lied in tin- par 
 lor, where he snored all night till Paradise 
 shook, and Mary said if she lived till morn 
 ing she would go home to her husband, and 
 Corona could do as she pleased. 
 
 At eleven o'clock that night there did, in 
 deed, an event occur which did not add to 
 the calm of the occasion. Some one knocked 
 thunderously at the back door. Mary .shrieked. 
 Corona put her slippers on. Matthew Lauuce- 
 lot uttered a debilitated bark and sauntered 
 out to the door, wagging his tail hospitably. 
 Father Morrison slept through the disturb 
 ance quite peacefully. But Puelvir filled all 
 her water-pails, and dashed the contents of 
 three out of the window, without looking to 
 see if they hit. 
 
 At this point the intruder hastened to ex-
 
 MR. PUSHETT. 129 
 
 plain that it was only Mr. Pushett ; and if 
 the young woman and the dog would let 
 him alone long enough, he 'd like to see 
 the lady of the house on very important busi 
 ness. 
 
 " But I can't let you in," said Corona, 
 when she had hastened to the back door. 
 " Puelvir has put so many shingle nails in 
 this door." 
 
 " I don't want to come in," whispered the 
 policeman through the key-hole. " I want 
 you to come out." 
 
 " Want me to" come out ? " 
 
 " Yes ; I 've got a clew." 
 
 " But I can't get out ! " objected Corona. 
 " She said she put in a pound. It would take 
 me all night to draw them " 
 
 " Try the front door," suggested the offi 
 cer, not unnaturally. 
 
 " But the front door 's nailed, too. I can't 
 get out there, either." 
 
 " I 've heard of burglar-proof houses," said 
 the policeman, " but a family-proof house I 
 never saw before. Calculate to stay in, do
 
 130 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 you ? Looks like it. Do you think you could 
 get out a window ? " 
 
 Corona replied that the lower windows were 
 all nailed, too. She suggested, however, that 
 she might climb over the piazza if she had a 
 tall step-ladder ; and Mr. Pushett replied that 
 he guessed he could help her ; it was dark ; 
 and she 'd better come. He added that he 
 could saw through the house anywhere in 
 twenty minutes and let her out ; but he was 
 in a hurry. 
 
 So Corona descended by the step-ladder 
 (she was a pretty good climber), and the offi 
 cer explained that he wanted her to ride seven 
 miles with him and see a man. He was con 
 fident he was on a clew. He thought he had 
 found the man. But he wanted her to iden 
 tify, before he arrested. It did not occur to 
 Corona to demur. Anything might happen 
 to a person who had been robbed of a $500 
 bond. So she and Mr. Pushett went over to 
 
 
 
 the barn and got the Lady of Shalott, and 
 drove away in the dark ; for the moon was 
 under a thunder-cloud. She noticed, as they
 
 MR. PUSHETT. 131 
 
 rode along, that the policeman dripped a good 
 deal, and he explained that one of that young 
 woman's water-buckets had hit him a little ; 
 he said she was rather too spirited a young 
 woman for his taste. 
 
 The Lady made excellent time, and took 
 her seven miles in forty-five minutes. Co 
 rona, as she and the policeman sped over the 
 lonely country, felt her heart warm toward 
 the pretty horse. It was depressing to think 
 that she might never be able to pay for her. 
 But Mr. Pushett assured her that he had as 
 good a clew as he ever got hold of in his pro 
 fessional life. He said all he wanted of her 
 was to look in a window at some fellows play 
 ing cards. 
 
 This sounded easy ; but Corona's heart 
 sank a little. She thought of what Mary said 
 about her unprotected life. She thought of 
 those other things Mary had said that night 
 when she came in looking like a Japanese 
 etching in the moonlight. But the police 
 man's shoulders were big, and Corona's pluck 
 was bigger. As she rode along on her un-
 
 132 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 usual errand, through that memorable mid 
 night, she reflected that, after all, if she had 
 any one to call on to track her own burglars 
 for her, he would probably be a very busy 
 person ; his rest would be more important 
 than hers ; and she should be perfectly 
 wretched if she could not do such a thing 
 herself and save him the trouble ; which, 
 possibly, she might not be allowed to do. 
 This consoled her so much that she was in 
 excellent spirits by the time they reached the 
 window through which Mr. Pushett wanted 
 her to look. 
 
 " You did n't tell me it was a grog-shop," 
 said Corona, drawing back for an instant. 
 
 " I '11 take care of you," said the officer, 
 curtly. So Corona and the policeman drew 
 near to the window and looked in. Four men 
 sat at a table, in the ill-favored place, gam 
 bling for whiskey. 
 
 " There ! " whispered the officer, breath 
 lessly. " Ain't that the feller ? That peaked 
 one, with the yellow goatee ? Ain't that the 
 peddler ? Just you look as you never looked 
 in your born days. Ain't that him ? "
 
 MR. PUSHETT. 133 
 
 " I never saw the man before in all my 
 life," whispered Corona. " He does n't look 
 any more like that peddler than he looks like 
 the Episcopal minister." The officer's face 
 fell over a precipice two hundred feet sheer. 
 Was she sure ? Take her oath to it ? She 
 must be mistaken. Would she take the 
 trouble to look again ? The clew 
 
 At this moment the man with the goatee 
 arose and shuffled to the outer door. He was 
 very drunk. The officer whisked Corona into 
 the buggy by one swift and mighty whisk ; and 
 they were driving quite leisurely by, when the 
 man appeared on the door-step. He sat down 
 stupidly for a minute, then staggered wretch 
 edly away ; there was n't much of him even 
 for a drunkard ; he was a poor, sunken, sod 
 den creature, soul and body. He reeled into 
 a miserable home near by. The officer drove 
 up softly and watched him. A woman in 
 a lank dress came out to meet the drunkard ; 
 she held a smoky kerosene-lamp above her 
 head, and looked at him ; a sick baby lay 
 upon the other arm, wailing fretfully. The
 
 134 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 woman said, " Joshuay, is that you ? " She 
 made no comment upon his condition ; she 
 was too used to it. He rolled in, and fell 
 over against her and down upon the floor ; 
 she looked at him apathetically, and then she 
 shut the door. 
 
 " There is something wrong about this 
 clew," said Corona. " Take me home, Mr. 
 Pushett." 
 
 And Mr. Pushett meekly took her home. 
 He was so disappointed that Corona felt quite 
 sorry for him. The thunder-storm had come 
 on, and it rained and lightened all the way 
 home. The mare was a good deal disturbed 
 at the whole adventure the matter not hav 
 ing been fully explained to her ; but she be 
 haved like a Lady-as-she-Ought, and Corona 
 reached her step-ladder soaked and safe, and 
 climbed back to bed, as much impressed with 
 Mr. Pushett's energy as she was with his suc 
 cess. 
 
 In the morning she did not get up early, 
 having a headache, and Puelvir said she would 
 send her breakfast up to her. Corona no-
 
 MR. PUSHETT. 135 
 
 ticed that Puelvir did not say she would bring 
 the breakfast, but concluded it was one of 
 Puelvir's eccentricities. Corona was lying 
 half asleep, half awake, feeling that morn 
 ing a little unprotected, after all, and almost 
 lonely, for Mary had gone home to her 
 husband, as she said she should, when she 
 was startled by heavy groping foot-falls and 
 smothered exclamations that seemed to be 
 struggling for dear life with the breakfast- 
 tray up the narrow and unlighted stairs. Im 
 mediately a big, broad fellow loomed into 
 the room, smiling like a sun-flower across the 
 waiter, on which he had upset the coffee and 
 overturned the butter-pat into the berries and 
 cream, and straightway took her into his 
 arms, waiter, pillow, coffee, and all, as nobody 
 else in the world 
 
 " Why, Tom ! Why, Tom ! " 
 
 " Did you think I 'd leave you in the 
 lurch ?" asked Tom, sitting down on the foot 
 of the bed to mop up a few little trout-brooks 
 of coffee that were rapidly changing the to 
 pography of the bed-spread. " I told Puelvir
 
 136 BUliCLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 to let me bring your -breakfast and surprise 
 you. She said you 'd take me for a burglar, 
 and shoot. I told her I 'd risk your hitting 
 anybody. I did n't think I should spill all 
 the coffee." 
 
 " But I thought you were in Canada ! Not 
 to come home for three weeks. This is three 
 days. You you you dear old you 
 Tom ! " 
 
 " Oh, yes," said Tom, carelessly ; " I was 
 in Canada. But I had an errand over in 
 Hoboken, so I saw it in the papers." 
 
 "The papers?" 
 
 " Why, certainly. Every newspaper east 
 of the Rocky Mountains is ringing with it. 
 They say there were five, and you shot two. 
 They say you lost $100,000 in Union Pacific 
 and Bell Telephone. They say you were 
 wounded in the lungs and hardly expected 
 to live. So I thought if it was so bad as 
 that, I *d better stop over a train. I took the 
 sleeper. I 've got to go back by the 4 p. M. 
 express. I can stay, let me see, I can 
 stay two hours and a half."
 
 vni. 
 
 THE STATE WILL PROTECT. 
 
 ALL Fairharbor was at her bloom. The 
 summer sun made mirrors of the soft 'gray 
 water ; the summer people started on the 
 beach, like flowers in a huge parterre ; the 
 winds were laid, or low ; the moons burned 
 with a white fire, like the hearts of loving 
 women, and repeated themselves in the waves, 
 fair and unconscious, as love reflects itself in 
 deeds, and knows not that it does so. Pleas 
 ure boats, with colored sails, tinted by artists 
 astray, stole by upon the idle flood that made 
 a merry mock at them. Voices of singers on 
 the cliffs or on the water melted late down 
 the silver and the purple evenings, and sung 
 the soul to sleep with the power of old songs. 
 All the world was at play, or adream. Cares 
 were corked like the Genius in the bottle in
 
 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 the Arabian story ; anxieties and fears waited 
 as the frosts wait, biding their time ; but it 
 was not the time of summer in Fairharbor. 
 Sickness cheated itself with distraction. Sor 
 row drugged itself with the sound of the tides 
 that said : " Thou art but another wave in 
 the eternal sea." Hope fed itself upon the 
 stir of pleasure-seeking human pulses; youth 
 tripfted to the time of the wave-notes, and 
 love maddened itself with beauty ; for sum 
 mer was on Fairharbor. 
 
 Hut in the Old Maid's Paradise these 
 things served as a background to a preoc 
 cupied family. The business of life went re 
 morselessly on. Tom had crowded so much 
 advice and affection into those two hours and 
 a half that Corona resumed the duties of her 
 position as a burgled householder with ela 
 tion. Tom's main point was to assure her 
 that her bond was so certain to be recovered 
 that the only thing she had to do was to take 
 his check to Mr. Thumb and pay for the 
 Lady of Shalott, who, Tom admitted, was as 
 good a horse as he could have bought him-
 
 THE STATE WILL PROTECT. 139 
 
 self. In fact, Tom said that the Lady was 
 worth more than she cost ; which was a grat 
 ification that nobody but an unprotected 
 woman horse-hunter could feel to the full. 
 Tom assured Corona that her registration 
 would bring back her bond if her robber 
 did n't, and made out his check to Mr. 
 Thumb's order with that masculine force of 
 will which makes it either necessary or impos 
 sible for a woman to yield a point. Corona's 
 hesitation was put by in a burly sort of way, 
 as if it were a thing of no more consequence 
 than a crochet-needle ; and before she knew 
 exactly what had happened, or why it hap 
 pened so, the Lady of Shalott became her 
 own. Tom managed so well in this matter 
 that it was months after, before it occurred 
 to Corona to wonder whether any doubt as to 
 the ultimate recovery of the property had 
 ever visited his mind. 
 
 Tom also assured her that she ought to 
 print some circulars. He told her he should 
 print a thousand if he were she. Everybody 
 told her to print circulars ; and, as she fol-
 
 140 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 lowed all the advice she received at that time, 
 she was fast flooding the land with circulars. 
 But Tom said they did n't cost much. Co 
 rona pictured the peddler as hiding behind 
 hay-stacks and other points of rural scenery 
 to read the < imilurs. 
 
 Tom also advised her immediately to put 
 the thing in the hands of the State's District 
 Police ; he observed that the local police 
 might do very well by local affairs ; and gave 
 vent to the daring inquiry : How did we 
 know it was a peddler? Tom added that if 
 anything more occurred to him he would tel 
 egraph. The most adorable thing about 
 Tom was that he had never once laughed at 
 her for not locking the drawer above the 
 drawer that held the bond. Corona could 
 have worshiped him. She kissed him twice 
 and a half, when she drove him up to the 
 moving train, on the last platform of whose 
 last car he leaped like a leopard in cheviot 
 and a Derby, to return to Canada. 
 
 When Corona and the Lady of Shalott 
 came back from the station, Corona found
 
 THE STATE WILL PROTECT. 141 
 
 five strange men sitting in the Old Maid's 
 Paradise. The first one said he was a re 
 porter for the Boston Sunday " Solar Sys 
 tem," and would be obliged to her for some 
 facts about the burglary. 
 
 Corona excused herself from the other four 
 gentlemen, and took the Boston Sunday 
 " Solar System " into the dining-room, and 
 received him with that abject helplessness 
 characteristic of the hitherto uninterviewed 
 American citizen. 
 
 The next gentleman said he was on the 
 staff of the Tewksbury " Daily Wild Fire," 
 and he had called for a few details of what 
 he considered the most blood-curdling rob 
 bery of the day. The third visitor repre 
 sented the New York "Billy;" and the 
 fourth said he did the religious column in a 
 denominational weekly ; the fifth hoped she 
 would consider him unobtrusive, but he had 
 called for material for her biography, which 
 would appear in to-morrow morning's issue 
 of the Texas " Trapper." Corona's natural 
 and acquired civility served her very well
 
 142 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 through the struggle with the Boston " Solar 
 System ; " but the supply sank as she ran 
 the blockade of the others ; and by the 
 time she had come down to the Texan, she 
 had relapsed into a condition of aboriginal 
 combativeness. The results, as she afterward 
 learned, were closely proportional. 
 
 The Boston Sunday " Solar System " told 
 a thrilling tale of midnight horror, headed : 
 " A YOUNG LADY DISPERSES A GANG OP 
 BURGLARS," in which she figured as beauti 
 ful, rich, brave, and twenty. The Tewksbury 
 " Wild Fire " said she was tanned. The New 
 York " Billy " said the lady's courage in the 
 affair had been overrated. The denomina 
 tional weekly said she was heterodox, lint 
 the Texas " Trapper " reported her as fifty- 
 seven years of age, and said she wore no 
 bangs. 
 
 Corona's next step led her to the Head 
 quarters of the State Police in search of her 
 property. She had a telegram from Tom the 
 morning she went, dated from Toronto, and 
 running :
 
 THE STATE WILL PROTECT. 143 
 
 " DEAR Sis, Wish I could do the whole 
 job for you." 
 
 Corona telegraphed back : 
 
 " DEAR BOY, Have my hand in, and 
 rather like it." 
 
 The Police Inspectors of her native State 
 received the lady courteously. She had never 
 visited such a place before, and found herself 
 a little excited by the abnormal nature of her 
 errand. The Inspectors did not seem excited 
 at all. They received the whole affair with a 
 calm amounting almost to what she felt re 
 sembled a lack of emotion upon the subject 
 of her loss. 
 
 There was an air of broad unconcern about 
 the State Headquarters, the atmosphere of 
 people so blase in burglary that Corona felt 
 a little mortified at never having had a bur 
 glary before. 
 
 " I have come," she said, humbly, " to put 
 the matter in your hands." 
 
 " Oh, certainly," replied the Inspector. 
 " We will take charge of your interests." 
 
 " It is a small sum," pleaded Corona, " but 
 larsre to me, you know."
 
 144 BURGLARS IN PARMHSK. 
 
 " Oh, certainly," observed the Inspector. 
 " Naturally. Quite so." 
 
 The Inspector leaned back in his chair and 
 drummed upon the table with his finger tips ; 
 he played the long -forgotten national air 
 which concerned itself with the proposal to 
 hang a very gentlemanly sub-patriot to a sour 
 apple- tree. 
 
 " Can't you send a man down there to in 
 spect the premises?" asked Corona, \\licn 
 she had told the story in detail. " I under 
 stand the State is expected to look after these 
 tilings." 
 
 " Of course," replied the officer, loftily. 
 " The State will protect." 
 
 He gave this in the tone of a devout man 
 who says, The Lord will provide. 
 
 " The local police is energetic," faltered 
 the lady, " and he keeps thinking he has a 
 clew." 
 
 The Inspector allowed himself a cosmo 
 politan smile ; his rather slender, unused lin 
 gers ceased to consign the sub-patriot to the 
 sour apple-tree.
 
 THE STATE WILL PROTECT. 145 
 
 " But I don't feel satisfied," continued 
 Corona, " to rest on that. I must depend 
 upon the State to do all that is possible for 
 the recovery of my property." 
 
 " To be sure," said the Inspector, dream 
 ily. " I see. Of course. I should think 
 the State would. I would if I was the State. 
 I would you excuse me, Madam I 'm 
 worn out to-day. We had a murder at the 
 South End last night, and I was up quite 
 late. We did n't find the murderer in that 
 case ; but we found a clew. But it kept me 
 pretty busy for a few hours, and would 
 you excuse me if I took a nap ? " 
 
 " Oh, certainly," said Corona. " Pray do. 
 You must be tired." 
 
 So the Inspector leaned back in his chair, 
 and took a little nap ; and Corona sat and 
 watched him. 
 
 When the Inspector woke up he seemed 
 quite brisk. He began : 
 
 " Now, Madam, I will take the points in 
 this case. Give them slowly, so I can get 
 them all into my head." 
 10
 
 146 BURGLARS IN PAR ADI. <!:. 
 
 So Corona gave the points, as well as she 
 could, and as slowly. 
 
 " Your local police is on the wrong trail," 
 said the Inspector, frowning, when she had 
 finished. " The peddler had nothing to do 
 with it." 
 
 u Is it possible ? " cried Corona. " But 
 the dog " - 
 
 " The dog was drunk," said the Inspector. 
 " The clew is in an entirely different direc 
 tion. Give me the full address of the deaf 
 boy who is in your employ." 
 
 " Zero? Mr. Inspector, that is impossi 
 ble !" 
 
 " All things arc possible to the Power of 
 the State," answered the Inspector, with maj 
 esty. " I refer to the boy who asked how 
 much money you kept in the house." 
 
 " But you mi^'lit as well refer to my guests 
 or my cook, in such a connection, as to that 
 poor little deaf, honest, stupid " 
 
 " It is not impossible that I mi^ht have to 
 refer to your guests or your cook," returned 
 the Inspector. " Worse things have hem.
 
 THE STATE WILL PROTECT. 147 
 
 A clew must be followed wherever it leads, 
 Madam, like life or death. I am satisfied I 
 have a clew. I will arrest the boy to-night." 
 " You will do nothing of the kind ! " cried 
 Corona. " I decline to prosecute. I decline 
 to have anything to do with it. I prefer to 
 lose my money to outraging my neighbors 
 by a course so devoid of the first principles 
 of common intelligence." 
 
 o 
 
 " Oh ! if you take it in that way," pro 
 tested the Inspector, " I really must have an 
 other nap. This is quite exhausting." 
 
 So the Inspector took another nap. When 
 he awoke he said he felt better. Corona 
 said she was glad to hear it. 
 
 "I have it ! " cried the Inspector suddenly, 
 with an expression almost amounting to 
 animation upon his peaceful countenance. 
 " You shoul^. print some circulars ! That 
 will certainly recover your bond. We will 
 try to assist you, of course, but your main 
 dependence is on your circulars." 
 
 Corona urged that she had already printed 
 circulars ; five hundred circulars to gratify
 
 148 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 Mr. Pushett ; one thousand circulars at the 
 advice of her brother. 
 
 u \\'e advise you to print fifteen hundred 
 circulars," said the Inspector. " They 
 
 not cost you anything to speak of. What re 
 ward have you offered ? " 
 
 Corona hesitatingly replied that she had 
 offered two hundred dollars reward. 
 
 " Make it three," said the Inspector. 
 
 " The loss is only five," suggested Corona. 
 But she made it three. 
 
 " When do you think I shall hear from 
 my bond ? " asked Corona, after a pause, in 
 which the Inspector gave so many symptoms 
 of going to sleep again that she felt obliged, 
 however reluctantly, to bring her personal in 
 terests once more to the notice of the State. 
 The Inspector roused himself and said : 
 
 " I beg your pardon ? " 
 
 Corona repeated her inquiry, and the In 
 spector said it was a very natural inquiry ; 
 he said he wished it were in his power to an 
 swer it ; he said they would certainly remem 
 ber the MM : he said, again, that the State
 
 
 THE STATE WILL PROTECT. 149 
 
 would protect. He went so far as to inti 
 mate that this was what the State was for. 
 This encouraged Corona so much that she 
 bade him good afternoon ; she could not 
 think of anything more to say, unless she 
 asked him once again whether he didn't 
 think he could send a man down to examine 
 the premises and the region where the rob 
 bery was committed ; but he said No, he 
 did n't think he could ; and then she wished 
 the Inspector pleasant dreams, and he thanked 
 her, and said he usually had 'em j and then 
 she came away. 
 
 After Corona had thus thrown herself 
 upon the protection of the State, she remem 
 bered that Tom had advised her to visit the 
 office of the Fee-Fi-Fum and I. 0. U. Ac 
 cordingly she did so, stating her errand as 
 inoffensively as possible. The Fee-Fi-Fum 
 was a very imposing railroad. There was a 
 great deal of marble in its office. There was 
 a great deal more of majesty in its clerks. 
 Over- marble and majesty Corona pushed her 
 errand, into the presence of the Thirteenth
 
 150 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 Assistant Vice-President, a gentlemanly young 
 man, who said he was sorry for her. Corona 
 thanked him, but said that she had come to 
 see about the duplication of her bond, which, 
 being registered, she had understood was 
 absolutely protected against lire, burglary, 
 and loss. The young man replied that, in 
 a sense, this was true ; in a sense, not. Co 
 rona begged to inquire in which sense it was 
 not true. 
 
 " We do not duplicate," returned the gen 
 tlemanly young man. " We never duplicate. 
 Our lawyer objects." 
 
 " How, then, asked the bondholder, am I 
 to get my money ? " 
 
 " In a sense" replied the young man, po 
 litely, " you don't get your money. Our law 
 yer is very strict about it." 
 
 " Who does get it, if I don't?" asked the 
 lady, patiently. " The Railroad ? " 
 
 "Oh, dear, no!" cried the younjj man. 
 " Of course not. I can't tell you exactly 
 who gets it. Our lawyer has never explained 
 to us."
 
 THE STATE WILL PROTECT. 151 
 
 " But the burglar cannot get it, can he ? " 
 asked Corona. 
 
 " Certainly not," returned the Thirteenth 
 Assistant V ice-President, brightening. " The 
 burglar cannot get it. It will never be of any 
 use to the burglar. That is the advantage of 
 registration." 
 
 " But I was told, when I bought my bond," 
 urged Corona, " that registration would pro 
 tect." 
 
 "I presume you were," said the young man, 
 courteously. " That seems to be the prevail 
 ing impression." 
 
 " And, of course, you understand," he 
 added, " that we will pay you your interest ; 
 it is only your principal which you do not 
 recover." 
 
 " That is something, at least." The bond 
 holder brightened. 
 
 "But you must first sign a little paper, you 
 know. We call it a bond of indemnity ; just 
 a little matter of form. I will show you a 
 copy. Here ! We require you to sign this 
 before we can pay you anything. Our law 
 yer is very particular about it."
 
 10'J BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 Corona read the bond of indemnity over 
 carefully, once twice. She laid it down 
 and rose to go. All the marble and majesty 
 li id passed over now from the office of the 
 Fee-Fi-Fum and I. 0. U. to the face of the 
 bondholder. 
 
 " This paper," said the bondholder, " re 
 quires me to expect nothing in case of for- 
 
 " Certainly not. Our lawyer " 
 
 " In case of forgery by the lifting of fig 
 ures ; by the erasion of names with the use 
 of chemicals ; in case, I observe, of your own 
 inadvertence in paying my property over to 
 the wrong party " 
 
 " Of course, madam. We could not be 
 expected to guard you against our own in 
 advertence. That would be asking a great 
 deal." 
 
 " This paper also requires," continued Co 
 rona, " that I shall protect you in a law-suit, 
 if any such be brought against you, by an 
 innocent and victimized purchaser of the 
 bond. It requires me to subject myself, for
 
 THE STATE WILL PROTECT. 153 
 
 the value of a $500 bond, to indefinite pecu 
 niary risks call it $5,000, say some 
 pleasant morning ? Do I understand it cor 
 rectly?" 
 
 " In a sense," said the officer of the Fee- 
 Fi-Fum, "you may be said to understand it. 
 It is a simple matter, you see. You sign 
 the paper. We pay you your $93 interest, 
 and " - 
 
 " I do not sign the paper," said Corona, 
 laying it down quietly. The officer of the 
 Fee-Fi-Fum looked surprised, even grieved. 
 
 " You will excuse me," repeated the lady, 
 " from signing your paper. May I ask, be 
 fore I bid you good-morning, in what you 
 consider that the value of registration does 
 consist?" 
 
 " Why, I told you," urged the Thirteenth 
 Assistant Vice-Presideut. " It renders the 
 property useless to the burglar." 
 
 " And protects the Railroad ? " asked Co 
 rona. 
 
 " Certainly, madam. And protects the Kail- 
 road."
 
 154 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 " Thank you," said Corona. " I under 
 stand now. Those are the main points in 
 which registration is of interest to the bond 
 holder?" 
 
 " I believe," said the Thirteenth Assistant 
 Vice-President, " those are the main points." 
 
 On her way to the station, Corona dropped 
 in at Messrs. Jump & Jiggles', and mentioned 
 the substance of her interview in the office of 
 the Fee-Fi-Fum and I. 0. U. The brokers 
 were quite interested in the matter. Mr. 
 Jump said the Fee-Fi-Fum had the sharpest 
 lawyer in New England. Both Mr. Jump 
 and Mr. Jiggles told the bondholder that she 
 had done just right. Mr. Jiggles went so far 
 as to say that he would see his money at 
 Behring's Strait before he would sign that sort 
 of a bond of indemnity. But Mr. Jiggles 
 was the nervous member of the firm.
 
 rx. 
 
 MESSRS. HIDE AND SEEK. 
 
 THE summer was wearing on. But that 
 Registered Bond No. 30,075 had not been 
 restored to Paradise. Freshets of circulars 
 poured over the land. The reward was grad 
 ually increased at about the rate of a dollar a 
 day. Tom telegraphed exorbitantly from dif 
 ferent points upon the map of North America. 
 Mr. Pushett called at the cottage, with a new 
 clew, from twice to three times a week. 
 Messrs. Jump & Jiggles sent a copy of some 
 advertisements once used by them in tracking 
 down a heavy theft from their private safe ; 
 but stated that, in that case, the money was 
 never recovered. The Fee-Fi-Fum wrote to 
 Corona that their lawyer would be happy to 
 explain to her that bond of indemnity. From 
 the headquarters of the State Force nothing 
 was received but a bill for printing circulars.
 
 156 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 It was in August that Tom telegraphed, 
 one pleasant evening, the two words, " J'r!- 
 vate Detective." 
 
 While Corona sat turning this message over 
 in her hand and in her mind, another, with 
 winged heels, flew fast upon it. The second 
 said : 
 
 " But be careful about confounding fel 
 ony" 
 
 " I don't see exactly what he means," said 
 Corona to Susy ; for Susy was visiting her 
 just then with the baby." 
 
 " I ahcays know what he means," said 
 Susy. " Let me see the telegram. * Con 
 founding felony. Confounding felony.' What 
 is ' confounding felony ' ? " 
 
 " It must be a mistake," said Corona. 
 
 " Oh, no," said Susy. " Tom never makes 
 mistakt >." 
 
 " It 's that telegram company made the 
 mistake," observed Puelvir. "I never did 
 think much of a concern that would steal the 
 name of the Woman's Christian Union out 
 right that way."
 
 MESSRS. HIDE AND SEEK. 157 
 
 " Whoever made the mistake," said Corona, 
 " I think Tom must have meant 6 compound 
 ing.' I think I 've heard the expression. I 'in 
 not clear what it means. I must ask Mr. 
 Pushett." 
 
 But Susy shook her head. She persisted 
 that confound was the natural and proper word 
 in that connection. She thought it might 
 have been confounded ' confounded fel 
 ony ' ; from what she knew of Tom's habits 
 of speech, she thought this quite possible. 
 Susy was very positive. She usually was. 
 And then the baby cried, the baby gen 
 erally did cry, and Susy said she wanted 
 Corona to take her to ride. Susy did not say, 
 but thought, that it was very inhospitable in 
 Corona that the Lady of Shalott had broken 
 her saddle-girth and that Zero had gone over 
 to the city to get it mended. Susy did say 
 that horse was always breaking something and 
 being mended ; and Corona replied that this 
 was quite true. Susy was having a delight 
 ful visit at the Old Maid's Paradise ; but you 
 never would have thought it.
 
 158 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 The next morning Corona took her sister- 
 in-law and her niece upon a drive ; and as 
 nothing broke but a buckle in the bridle, and 
 as the Lady did not cast a shoe, and did 
 not happen to get a great many stones into 
 her feet, and was not too warm, so that Co - 
 rona felt at liberty to let her go, and was not 
 too cold, so it was not necessary to blanket 
 her, they had a charming drive, and returned 
 in excellent spirits. Corona was just waiting 
 to give the Lady of Shalott her piece of maple 
 sugar, and to remind Zero to look for rorks 
 in her feet, and be sure and wash her ankles, 
 and put on her duster, and hang up the har 
 ness, and not give her anything for half an 
 hour, and not to forget to wet the oats, and 
 to remember the hay, and not to take any 
 body else's pail, and to look after the bed 
 ding, and to give her all the water she want 
 ed, and to shut the barn window where the 
 draught was, and dust the cushions, and wash 
 the wheels, and shake the mat, and dry the 
 sponges, and put the chamois in the sun, ami 
 pull the buggy in out of it, and shut the barn
 
 MESSRS. HIDE AND SEEK. 159 
 
 door, and come again at four o'clock as 
 Corona was thus struggling with her daily du 
 ties as a lone woman who boarded a horse in 
 Fairharbor, Puelvir came out to tell her that 
 there was another man in the parlor, and she 
 thought he was a widower or a book-agent ; 
 she could n't tell which. 
 
 But when Corona went into the house, she 
 found that he was a New York detective. He 
 introduced himself as representing the famous 
 firm of Hide & Seek, private detectives. He 
 admitted that he was Mr. Seek. He usually 
 sent a man ; but this case he considered a lit 
 tle out of the ordinary run. Her brother, he 
 said, had sent him ; he had requested them to 
 lose no time in giving her at least the oppor 
 tunity to put her affairs into their hands. 
 Mr. Seek had seen her brother for ten min 
 utes as he was passing through on his way to 
 somewhere. He produced a line of introduc 
 tion from Tom in proof of these assertions, and 
 Corona begged him to be seated. Mr. Seek 
 added that they had ten dollars a day and ex 
 penses. As nearly as he could make out, he
 
 160 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 should expect to recover her bond in about 
 five days after he once got at it. After a 
 little preliminary firing, Corona confided to 
 Mr. Seek that the State did not protect her, 
 that the Fee-Fi-Fura charged their law-suits 
 and their inadvertence to her, and that Mr. 
 Pushett woke her up nights. In short, she 
 said, she was now ready to do what she should 
 have done the day the robbery was committed, 
 to put herself unreservedly in the han-ls 
 of honorable private detectives, who could in 
 sure the return of her property for any pecu 
 niary consideration which the interest at stake 
 might justify her in paying. 
 
 So Mr. Seek took out his note-book and 
 pencil, as Mr. Pushett had done ; and he, in 
 his turn, called for the points of the case. 
 Corona was delighted with the exquisite agil 
 ity which marked the detective's movements. 
 They were in highly-organized contrast to the 
 crude energy of the local force or the sedative 
 benediction of State protection. The profes 
 sional detective had the " go " of a man who 
 charged by the comma, and to whom every
 
 MESSRS. HIDE AND SEEK. 161 
 
 interrogation point meant money. He said 
 it would be necessary to ask a few questions, 
 and he proceeded something in the following 
 manner, after begging the lady's pardon for 
 his precision of detail : 
 
 " Your name, if you please ? Maiden 
 name ? Where do you reside in the winter ? 
 Parents living ? Their name ? Name of Pa 
 ternal Grandfather ? Maternal Grandmoth 
 er ? Her maiden name ? Any consump 
 tion in your family ? Insanity ? Epilepsy ? 
 Are you a Homreopathist ? As a family, do 
 you have severe colds? Any of your folks 
 ever in prison ? Ever hung for anything ? 
 Are you quick-tempered ? How old are you ? 
 Where were you born ? Did you ever have 
 red hair? False teeth? What is your 
 height, if you please ? Blue eyes ? Have 
 you any occupation ? Do you drink coffee ? 
 Is it your intention to marry? How much 
 are you worth ? " 
 
 When the detective had put these questions, 
 with others of an equally comprehensive na 
 ture, he requested to see the servants of the 
 
 11
 
 162 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 family. Zero was first brought upon the scene. 
 The detective took the boy in with one pier 
 cing professional glance, then made a per 
 fectly unconscious and rather interesting ges 
 ture with the lead pencil, as if he canceled 
 that entry in the topic. He gave, however, 
 a few passing inquiries : 
 
 " Well, Zero, how long have you been in 
 the service of this lady ? " 
 
 "Hey?" 
 
 " How long have you worked for this 
 lady?" 
 
 " Lady ? The horse's name 's the Lady. 
 She calls her the Lady that Sold Out. I take 
 care of her. She 's a good horse." 
 
 "Are you deaf?" 
 
 "Eh?" 
 
 " Deaf. Are you DEAF ? " 
 
 " No, I ain't deef. I 'm a little hard o* 
 hearin'." 
 
 " Who was the person who asked you how 
 much money your employer kept " 
 
 "Hi?" 
 
 " Who was the person f " etc., etc.
 
 MESSRS. HIDE AND SEEK. 163 
 
 " He warn't a person. He was a boy." 
 
 " What was his name ? " 
 
 "Hey? Dimno. Never see him afore. 
 Never see him sence. He was a kind of long 
 boy. He don't belong in these parts. What ? 
 I did n't sense what you said. Hey ? " 
 
 " Where were you on the night of the rob 
 bery ? " 
 
 " Me ? I was to home, sleepin' along of 
 my little brother." 
 
 "How did you spend the previous even- 
 
 O " 
 
 mg? 
 
 " Marm give me a Sunday-school lesson to 
 learn to my sister. I helped along of the 
 dishes first, and chopped the kindlin'." 
 
 " Are you aware that you might have been 
 the subject of suspicion in this business ? " 
 
 "Hey?" 
 
 " Suspicion. Do you know you might " 
 
 " Fishin ? No, I ain't fishin these days. I 
 take care of her and her horse." 
 
 At this point the detective said that would 
 do, and requested to see the female domestic. 
 Puelvir came. She had her crimps on, and a
 
 164 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 fresh dress. She stood with her hands upon 
 her hips. She and the detective eyed each 
 other. The detective smiled slightly. But 
 Puelvir did not smile. 
 
 " Here I be ! " she began. " What do you 
 want of me ? " 
 
 " Your name, if agreeable to you." 
 
 ' ( It 's a very agreeable name to me. I was 
 christened Puella Virginia of a Christmas 
 Sunday in the Baptist meetin-house. Nor 
 I Ve never seen any reason to change it, 
 nuther." 
 
 "Your age?" 
 
 " Be you the census-taker ? " 
 
 " I am anything that serves my purposes in 
 this business." 
 
 " The last one asked me how many children 
 there was in this house. I shut the door in 
 his face, and sent him about his business. 
 That one you hear cryin* upstairs belongs 
 to her sister-in-law. It don't reside here, 
 thanks to mercy." 
 
 " You have forgotten to tell ine how old 
 you are."
 
 MESSRS. HIDE AND SEEK. 165 
 
 " Just fifteen come Janooary," said Puelvir, 
 grimly. 
 
 " How long do you purpose to remain in 
 the service of this lady ? " 
 
 " Long as she '11 have me." 
 
 " Are you attached to her service ? " 
 
 " I refused two for her in a year and six 
 months." 
 
 " Two what ? " 
 
 " Two widderers. (Never you mind, Miss 
 Corona ; I don't count the raspberry man 
 neither.") 
 
 " That peddler he was an old acquaint 
 ance of yours, I believe ; was n't he ? Was 
 he an agreeable gentleman ? " 
 
 " What are you up to ? " said Puelvir, 
 sharply. 
 
 " He said some polite things, perhaps, to 
 you. I should think he might. I was merely 
 inquiring " 
 
 " Men folks are most generally polite to me. 
 They hev to be." 
 
 " Especially in this case, when it was an old 
 friend, I think you said. Somebody whose
 
 16G BURGLARS /A* PARADISE. 
 
 acquaintance you formed last winter ? Wanted 
 to marry you, I dare say, if you had returned 
 his sentiments ? " 
 
 " Look a here ! " said Puelvir, slowly, in a 
 voice of concentrated passion ; all her gaunt, 
 faithful face seemed to draw back and square 
 off at the detective : " Do you mean do 
 you durst to mean to to come here with 
 the drippin's of a notion in the bottom of 
 your miser'ble sin-akin' Noo York City soul, 
 that me and her burglars was on terms ? Do 
 you darst to figger it as I move in any sech 
 circle of society? Do you darst to suppose 
 Lord have mercy on his soul ! " cried Puel 
 vir, turning to her mistress with a motion 
 and expression which were so noble that they 
 could not fail of being beautiful. " What 
 do you suppose the poor critter does darst to 
 suppose? Me me, Miss Corona, and 
 I 've been that fond of you. Well, there ! 
 Let the creetur go. He ain't wuth a tear. 
 not even where salt 's so plenty as it is along 
 shore. I won't cry for him; you don't catch 
 me. You poor creetur," added Puelvir,
 
 MESSRS. HIDE AND SEEK. 167 
 
 gently : " You 're wuss than a census-taker. 
 You may go. I have n't nothin' more to say 
 to you. You may go. I 've got some sass 
 to season. You '11 have to excuse me, sir. 
 Good-mornin'." 
 
 When the detective had finished his con 
 versations with Corona and Zero and Puelvir, 
 and had examined the premises carefully, and 
 had interviewed the expressman and Mr. Push- 
 ett, he expressed himself as perfectly satis 
 fied with his morning's work. He said it was 
 as clear a case as he ever had in his life. He 
 said all he wanted now was four days. He 
 expected to be able to put his finger on the 
 bond in four days. It was a beautiful case, 
 he said. The servants were not implicated ; 
 he had never thought the servants were impli 
 cated. This was the work of a professional 
 cracksman. What was more, Mr. Seek added, 
 with a certain pride in his tone, it was the 
 work of New York cracksmen. It was too 
 neat to be done anywhere else. They talk 
 about the culture of Boston ! It was all very 
 well ; but when you came to a thing of this
 
 168 liriiGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 kind, it could n't be compassed outside of 
 New York. It was the most beautiful piece 
 of work he had seen for some time. There 
 was a dexterity, a dare, a reticence about the 
 job, which, professionally speaking, excited 
 Mr. Seek's admiration. He worked himself 
 into such a glow upon the subject that Co 
 rona quite shared his enthusiasm. She be 
 gan to feel it something of an honor to have 
 been burgled by such highly-developed cracks 
 men ; and when Mr. Seek assured her that he 
 knew the fellow past all question, her excite 
 ment waxed rapidly. 
 
 " Beyond all doubt," said Mr. Seek, as he 
 rose to take his adieus, " the man who robbed 
 your house is Marcus Aurelius Bobbin a 
 notorious cracksman ; belongs to the second 
 story gang ; he 's an expert ; I know him 
 well. Been in Sing-Sing three times, for 
 forgery, and other little matters. There is n't 
 a deeper fellow in the country ; his skill is 
 really something uncommon. If he is n't 
 drunk, I can put my finger on him to-mor 
 row evening. If he is n't here, he will be
 
 MESSRS. HIDE AND SEEK. 169 
 
 there or there. I know every saloon he vis 
 its ; every pal in his gang- ; every indictment 
 that is hanging over his head. There are 
 four against him already. Your bond is in 
 the hands of his fence. I know his fence. 
 Or it is at his pawnbroker's. I know his 
 pawnbroker very well. I 'd raise the reward 
 a few dollars, if I was you. Perhaps I 'd 
 print a few more circulars. I 'd make it up 
 to two thousand. Give me a few hundred to 
 scatter as I go along. In case of any hitch 
 it would be a good thing. But I am certain 
 of my clew. I am confident Marcus Aure- 
 lius will come to terms. In point of fact, I 
 presume he is only waiting to hear from me. 
 He counts upon your taking any honor 
 able steps. You may expect to see your bond 
 within six days. I shall telegraph you as 
 soon as I see my man. It is a remarkably 
 neat case. I will keep you informed. You 
 will probably hear from me to-morrow night." 
 But Corona did not hear from the New 
 York detective to-morrow night, nor the next 
 night, nor the next. It lacked a little of a
 
 170 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 week from the day of his visit at Paradise, 
 when a letter was received from Mr. Seek, 
 which ran : 
 
 " OFFICE OF Him. SKFK & Co., 
 NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 " DEAR MADAM, Marcus Aurelius Bob 
 bin is committed for murder in the second 
 degree. As it seems he was in prison at the 
 date of the robbery, we find him able to 
 prove an alibi. We have now a better clew 
 than that. Have no doubt whatever that we 
 are on the right scent this time. Please send 
 by check, to order, forty dollars more by re 
 turn mail. It will be needed immediately. 
 Yours, etc., HIDE, SEEK & Co." 
 
 Days passed. Nights fled. The moon 
 waned. At intervals Corona heard from 
 Messrs. Hide & Seek. Usually it was by 
 telegraph ; collect dispatches. They were 
 always cheerful dispatches. Sometimes they 
 said : 
 
 " Must have fifty dollars to morrow. 
 New clew." 
 
 Maddening messages like these dashed
 
 MESSRS. HIDE AND SEEK. 171 
 
 upon her, inevitably in the evening after the 
 last train had gone : 
 
 " Come 'to New York, or send agent. 
 Must consult with you." 
 
 Or, without a moments warning, she found 
 herself plunged into an abyss like this : - 
 
 " Send seventy-Jive dollars by telegraph. 
 Pawnbroker hedges. All goes well." 
 
 Ou vont les vieilles lunes ? Where go the 
 old clews ? Corona went so far as to wonder 
 sometimes ; but she never went any further. 
 Nothing went any further, except her check 
 book. She used up one and began another 
 in the ardent service of Messrs. Hide & Seek. 
 But neither Messrs. Hide & Seek, nor the 
 Protecting State, nor Mr. Pushett, nor time, 
 nor the burglars, nor the check-book, restored 
 to Paradise that Registered Bond of the Fee- 
 Fi-Fum and I. 0. U.
 
 JUDAS JOHNS. 
 
 AND still the summer fled. The nastur 
 tiums in the dory burst into a blaze outside 
 the cottage windows ; the ardent flowers 
 leaped up the little masts and caught each 
 other across the ropes of twine, and flung to 
 the light winds a sheet of gold. Where 
 once the old gray sail had perilously tossed 
 the weather-daring boat across the bar (for, 
 to put a sail on a dory, it is well known, is 
 to take one's life in one's hands) the yellow 
 flowers turned their burning faces to look 
 into sheltered windows, or leaned to neigh 
 bors' children lifting up, or played tricks 
 with the restless horse, when she stood wait 
 ing too long for her driver, on the white-hot 
 mornings. The helpless boat had lost her 
 air of tugging at her anchor to get away ;
 
 JUDAS JOHNS. 173 
 
 she had settled to her lot, like gentle old age 
 to its fireside corner ; the storms had broken 
 and were past ; the tide was stemmed, and 
 had set in. Here was the last haven for 
 the wave and the wind, the grass-blade and 
 the seed ; for the surf and the thunder, the 
 flowering of little thoughts and cares ; for 
 action and passion and courage, patience and 
 waiting and peace. The dory accepted its 
 fate like a lovable old man. 
 
 The summer fled ; too fast for the busy 
 feet that now would never overtake her ; too 
 fast for the heart distraught with cares she 
 would have none of. If Marcus Aurelius 
 Bobbin pined in prison, if Messrs. Hide & 
 Seek pranced after all the clews in New York 
 society, what is that (said summer in Fair- 
 harbor), what is that to me or thee ? 
 
 But never to the threshold of Paradise re 
 turned nay, not by so much as a registered 
 coupon that registered bond No. 30,075, 
 Fe-Fi-Fum and I. 0. U. 
 
 It was a warm afternoon in late August 
 when the event which it is the duty of this
 
 174 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 chapter to record took place. It took place, 
 like most of the others, in the gray parlor, 
 which was fast assuming to Corona's wearied 
 imagination the character of a penitentiary 
 or police-station ; she felt as if it would need 
 somo immense moral or mental cologne- 
 sprinkler to deodorize from her gentle home 
 the odic forces which had invisibly wandered 
 thither with the magnetism of the strange 
 visitants whom misfortune had imposed upon 
 her. She continued, at stray moments, to 
 think of what Mary said about her lonely 
 situation. 
 
 It was more lonely than usual just now. 
 Mary was traveling with her husband. Tom 
 had taken Susy and the baby to the Yellow 
 stone on what he called a little trip. Elf 
 was at Bar Harbor. All of the girls v 
 going somewhere, or busy somehow ; it was 
 one of the interludes when there was nobody 
 in particular to visit Paradise. Puelvir alone 
 stayed by her ; Puelvir and the summer 
 boarders, Matthew Launcelot and the Lady 
 of Shalott and Zero and tho ocean. Alter
 
 JUDAS JOHNS. 175 
 
 all, how many ! Corona counted them on 
 her fingers, and took heart easily ; she al 
 ways did. 
 
 On this hot afternoon of which I speak, 
 she was sitting quite by herself in a cool 
 Wakefield chair, in the draught between the 
 open door and windows. The blinds were 
 closed, and the light in .he room was dim. 
 It was so dim that, when a shadow fell across 
 it, she did not at first observe that some one 
 had entered the room, and was standing, 
 staring about. Immediately, however, she 
 saw, started, and sprang to her feet. This 
 was like no guest who had ever been seen in 
 Paradise ; thL was quite another thing. 
 
 When she sprang, the man sprang too ; 
 instinctively put his hand upon what may 
 have been his pistol-belt dropped it, and 
 recovered himself. 
 
 "I'll I'll not harm you," he said. 
 " I 've come on business." 
 
 " I will listen to your business," said Co 
 rona, quietly. 
 
 He was a pitiable looking man ; not very
 
 176 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 large, nor very strong-looking, nor very 
 young. Hidden deeds had carved ugly lines 
 in his weak face ; evil years had lighted fires 
 in his narrow eyes that smouldered with t la- 
 unconscious self-betrayal of vice ; he stooped, 
 and he had a cough, and his hands shook 
 like those of a person who had palsy hang 
 ing about him. He was not very well clad, 
 and looked as if he might have been a drink 
 ing man. Take him all in all, he was not a 
 pleasant looking person. 
 
 After that first throb, Corona's heart beat 
 evenly ; she did not feel afraid of him some 
 how ; fear was not the word. Her emotions 
 pulsated from indignation to pity like the 
 pendulum of a delicate clock. 
 
 " Sit down," she said, " and explain your 
 errand. (Come here, Matthew Lauucelot !) 
 I will hold the dog. (Be still, Matthew ! 
 Do not touch this person. I will take can- 
 of myself. When I want you, I will tell 
 you. Sit still, sir.") 
 
 " He seems to be a spirited dog," objected 
 the stranger, discontentedly. " Those tan
 
 JUDAS JOHNS. 177 
 
 terriers are considered the best watch-dogs in 
 the world by those that have reason to 
 know, I believe. You '11 explain to him., 
 may be, that I don't mean any harm to any 
 body." 
 
 " Yes," said the lady. " I will explain it." 
 
 " I did n't know I 'd got a woman to deal 
 with," began the stranger, with embarrass 
 ment. " There was nothing but initials 
 to the advertisement. Where 's your hus 
 band ? " 
 
 " He is not here just now," replied Co 
 rona. 
 
 " Father ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Brother ? No man you could put hands 
 on ? I 'd rather deal with a man." 
 
 " Whoever has errands at this house must 
 deal with me." 
 
 " I suppose " the visitor hesitated "I 
 suppose you know what I 've come for ? " 
 
 " What have you come for ? " 
 
 " It 's about I come on business about 
 your bond. I saw your advertisement and 
 
 12
 
 178 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 two of your circulars. You offered a reward 
 
 for the recovery of the bond." 
 I did." 
 
 " Mean to pay it ? " 
 " Certainly. When the bond is restored 
 
 to me I shall pay whatever I have offered to 
 
 the restorer." 
 
 " Take your Bible oath to it ? " 
 
 " A lady's word is as good as her oath." 
 
 "Is it?" asked the fellow, with what 
 
 seemed like a touch of rralitv in his tone. 
 
 
 
 " I don't know much about ladies." 
 
 " I know where your property is," ven 
 tured the guest, after an awkward silence. 
 " I could get it returned to you." 
 
 " Did you steal it ? " asked Corona, quietly. 
 " Are you the thief ? " 
 
 So help me God ! No ! " 
 
 " I wonder if you do expect God to help 
 you ? " she asked, with a kind of distant in 
 tellectual curiosity. 
 
 "Ma'am?" 
 
 " Never mind. It seems 'to me that I 
 should need some other proof that you are
 
 JUDAS JOHNS. 179 
 
 not the thief, besides the very natural relig 
 ious feeling of dependence upon the Al 
 mighty which you express." 
 
 " Do you think I 'd be such a dummed 
 fool as to come here if I was ? " 
 
 This was the outcry of Nature, and Co 
 rona bowed to the argument. 
 
 " I suppose," she said, " you are what is 
 called a < fence ?' Is that it?" 
 
 " Never you mind," said her visitor, sur 
 lily, " what I am. You advertise for your 
 lost property. You offer a reward. I see 
 your advertisement. I offer to return your 
 property. That is all that concerns you in 
 the business, anyhow." 
 
 " It might be, and might not be," returned 
 Corona. " I am not used to such business. 
 If I can recover my property honorably, I 
 shall be glad to do it. If I can't, I shall let 
 it go. Money is not the only thing to be 
 considered in such a question." 
 
 " Ma'am ? " said the stranger again. 
 
 " You ain't rich, are you ? " he observed, 
 after looking about the little room. His eyes
 
 180 BURGLARS IN PARAI> 
 
 wandered over the books and pictures with 
 dull interest, fell on the cotton-flannel up 
 holstery, and returned to the floor; where 
 they sank, it seemed from force of habit, like 
 something weighted, to drown in deep water. 
 
 "No, I am not rich. I sometimes wonder 
 how a man must feel to rob a woman." 
 
 " A cracksman is a busy man," observed 
 the caller. " People of their profession 
 have so many different interests, you know. 
 They 're polite men, too. It 's seldom they 
 hurt a lady if it comes to the worst ; they '11 
 go out of their way rather than to shoot a 
 lady. But about this bond. If you will let 
 me go home and consult with a friend of 
 mine I 'm out of money ; I wonder if you 
 could lend me enough to get to New York ? 
 No ? Oh ! well, it 's of no consequence, ami 
 then, if you will advertise in the New York 
 * Corkscrew,' and name thp day and place, 
 and come on yourself, and say, ' So help you 
 God, you '11 act in good faith,' and not men 
 tion the matter to anybody, and bring the 
 cash with you for the sum you offer, I
 
 JUDAS JOHNS. 181 
 
 think I know a man who is acquainted 
 with a f ellow who will on that occasion re 
 store your bond." 
 
 " What is your name ? " asked this unpro 
 tected woman at this juncture. 
 
 "You may call me what you please," said 
 the " fence," looking heavily into his hat. 
 
 " Suppose I call you Judas Johns ? " 
 
 " That will do as well as any name for 
 me," returned the man. " I don't know as 
 I have you a strong preference for the first 
 name you mention ? " 
 
 " It occurred to me at the moment ; that 
 is all," said the lady. 
 
 " My conditions are very simple," pleaded 
 the " fence," lifting his narrow eyes to her 
 serious, pale face. " It 's a registered bond 
 and no mortal use to 'em except they get the 
 reward. I don't think you '11 have any trou 
 ble. You just do as I tell you, and adver 
 tise, and come on. You 'd be met at any 
 safe and respectable place you name, and no 
 harm could come to you." 
 
 " Why don't you come to me with my 
 property ? " asked the bondholder.
 
 182 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 " Lord ! " cried the man, looking up. " I 
 wouldn't put myself in this position again 
 for the worth of the whole bond. Folk;; 
 stared at me at your depot here. Your po 
 lice follered me. You 'd have thought some 
 thing ailed me." 
 
 " I don't know that I wonder," remarked 
 Corona, looking the poor wretch over. 
 
 " I don't know how I 'm going to get out 
 of it, either," querulously. " You 're on a 
 branch, and I 've got to get back the way I 
 come. You don't catch me in this blarsted 
 town again, if I can see my way out of it. 
 Say. You won't make trouble for me, will 
 you ? I come in good faith. You '11 treat 
 me in good faith, won't you ? " 
 
 " Mr. Judas Johns," said Corona, in a low 
 voice, " you had better take the next train, 
 and go. I have nothing more to say to 
 you." 
 
 " You don't mean it ? " cried Judas Johns. 
 " Why, I could restore your property in a 
 week ! " 
 
 " When my property is restored to me, I
 
 JUDAS JOHNS. 183 
 
 shall receive it," said Corona, who had, be it 
 confessed, the vaguest idea whether she were 
 behaving like a heroine or a fool ; she had 
 nothing but blind instinct to guide her ; and 
 instinct said : " Stop here." 
 
 " I don't know what compounding felony 
 is," she added, " and very likely I should n't 
 know a felon if I saw him. But I prefer not 
 to pursue the matter, Mr. Judas Johns, in 
 the way you propose. The train leaves at 
 half -past five. It will take you an hour to 
 get over there." 
 
 "You ain't going to play any dodge on 
 me, are you ? " asked Judas Johns, turning 
 ghastly white. 
 
 " I could n't if I wanted to. The police 
 are three miles away, and I have no tele 
 phone. You could hide in the woods over 
 yonder a week, and nobody find you. No, 
 I do not think it my duty to trouble you any 
 further than to ask you to bring our inter 
 view to an end." 
 
 " I ain't the burglar, you know," urged 
 Judas Johns. " My business never has run in
 
 184 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 that line." He rose to go, glancing uneasily 
 about. 
 
 " I understand," said Corona. Do what 
 she might, pity half slew indignation in her 
 soul, as she looked solemnly at the weak and 
 (ringing figure that crawled away from her. 
 Judas Johns shook now, but not with palsy ; 
 and staggered, but not from drink. He vas 
 the picture of fear. 
 
 " I Ve had a fit of sickness," he said. " I 
 ain't very strong. I wish I was in New 
 York. I have n't enjoyed my visit to this 
 town. It 's a Godforsaken country." 
 
 As Judas Johns halted on the steps of the 
 cottage to look up and down the street with 
 his long, furtive, anxious look, curie >sity over 
 came stateliness hi Corona, for that last mo 
 ment's chance, and she asked : 
 
 " Do you suppose, Mr. Johns, from your 
 general acquaintance with the world 
 have you any idea that the men who stole my 
 bond were the same that stole a paj>er of tarks 
 and a hatchet and so on in the neighborhood, 
 early in June ? "
 
 JUDAS JOHNS. 185 
 
 " What do you take 'em for ? " cried Mr. 
 Judas Johns. 
 
 " Then it was n't the same gang ? " 
 
 " Your job was done by the most accom 
 plished cracksman in the United States. Why, 
 he never touches anything below $500 ! " 
 
 " Was it the peddler ? " asked Corona, 
 breathlessly. But Mr. Johns made no reply. 
 He put his hat on, jammed it well over his 
 eyes, and moved away. 
 
 " And those clews all those clews ? " 
 ventured Corona. " The local police, and 
 the State police, and the private detective 
 they all have clews, you know. Are none of 
 them " She stopped. 
 
 Mr. Judas Johns regarded her as straight 
 as a man with eyes so crooked could regard 
 a lady who had shown some sense in a trying 
 position. A stray smile crept across his un 
 holy features, the first and only one which she 
 had seen. 
 
 " You 've treated me like a like a 
 lady," he said slowly. " I would n't spend any 
 more money if I was you."
 
 186 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 " You 're sure you could n't advance me 
 passage-money to New York, are you ? " he 
 added, turning round when he had gone as 
 tar as the clothes-post. 
 
 " Quite sure. But I will give you an omni 
 bus ticket a Fairharbor omnibus ticket to 
 the station, if you would like it." 
 
 Mr. Johns replied that he should like it 
 very much, and Corona gave him an omnibus 
 ticket. 
 
 Matthew Launcelot up to this time had 
 remained unsubmissive, but a fixture in his 
 mistress's arms. At intervals he had inter 
 rupted her conversation with Mr. Judas Johns 
 by anguished growls and yawns of thwarted 
 ferocity ; now and then he struggled like the 
 moral law in the grasp of the Devil and all 
 his angels, in Corona's tender clutch. As 
 the visitor turned to go, and when he was 
 well past the doryful of nasturtiums, and down 
 the road, and through the gate, the dog gave 
 one unearthly yell, and, seeming to shriek his 
 soul and body out of Corona's arms sprang 
 from them, and off like a cauuou-ball after 
 Mr. Judas Johns.
 
 JUDAS JOHNS. 187 
 
 " Matthew ! Matthew Launcelot ! Come 
 back ! Come here this minute, sir ! Oh ! 
 Puelvir, stop that dog ! Matthew Launcelot! 
 Oh, I would n't have had this happen ! Mat 
 thew ! PUELVIR ! " 
 
 " Have mercy upon ye ! " cried Puelvir, 
 running wildly about. " It 's the burglar ! " 
 
 " It 's not the burglar, Puelvir ! Stop the 
 dog ! Matthew Launcelot ! Don't you touch 
 that man ! " 
 
 " If it ain't t burglar, it 's his first cou 
 sin on the mother's side ! " rebelled Puelvir. 
 " Don't you ask me to stop the dog for you, 
 Miss Corona ! " 
 
 The dog had leaped as far as the gate and 
 stood bristling ; at his mistress's voice he 
 turned his angry head ; Mr. Judas Johns, too 
 terrified to hurry, gave one beseeching glance 
 at Corona and stood still. The dog he could 
 kick into the Harbor ; but against the scene 
 he was powerless. The people on the beach 
 began to collect in groups and look idly up 
 the street. All the consequences forced them 
 selves through Corona's imagination in an 
 instant's diameter.
 
 188 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 " Matthew Launcelot, come here" she said, 
 in a terrible voice. The terrier looked at 
 her at Mr. Judas Johns and at her 
 again. All the while he was barking thun 
 derously. It was a duel between the dog and 
 the mistress. 
 
 " Matthew Launcelot, you have no business 
 to touch that person ! Come Acre, sir ! " 
 
 Matthew walked deliberately through the 
 gate, up the street a little way. 
 
 " Let him alone, BIT ! Come here, sir. 
 Come here to me ! " 
 
 " Would n't, if I was him ! " said Puelvir, 
 virtuously. The dog looked back over his 
 shoulder. 
 
 " Come here, or I '11 I '11 have somebody 
 else beat you ! " called the mistress. 
 
 The dog hesitated, turned, and came slowly 
 back ; he was trembling with baffled rage ; 
 Corona patted him, but he did not kiss her. 
 Outraged respectability flashed from his fiery 
 eyes. A creature defeated in his own voca 
 tion a conscience called off its post of duty 
 by another conscience Matthew Launcelot 
 obeyed, because he was a dog.
 
 JUDAS JOHNS. 189 
 
 But he howled after the retreating figure 
 of Mr. Judas Johns, as it passed a weak 
 and dreary spectacle up the street, as if 
 the foundations of human civilization depend 
 ed upon the amount of noise that could be 
 made before the wretched man had turned 
 the corner.
 
 XL 
 
 
 
 WHAT IS CALLED FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 BUT still the summer took to herself her 
 scented wings; dipped them in the glowing 
 waves of the Harbor as she flitted over, and 
 lifted them dripping with the deeper colors 
 of the harvest days. For it was September 
 in Fairharbor ; and Paradise had abandoned 
 its search for the registered bond No. 30,075 
 of the Fee-Fi-Fum and I. 0. U. 
 
 A full account of the visit of Mr. Judas 
 Johns having passed from the lady to the 
 detectives, Messrs. Hide & Seek luminously 
 replied that if Judas Johns were not the cel 
 ebrated fence, Jib Handover, he was the still 
 more celebrated confidence man, Tib Come- 
 over. In either case she had been dealing 
 with a person highly accomplished in his de 
 partment, and had effected a dextrous escape
 
 WHAT IS CALLED FRIENDSHIP. 191 
 
 or a serious mistake, as she chose to regard it, 
 or as the event might prove. Messrs. Hide 
 & Seek intimated that she should have tele 
 phoned to themselves before she let the fellow 
 go ; and offered (if she would forward $6^.50 
 more) to put their finger on him and inves 
 tigate his game. Messrs. Hide & Seek ob 
 served that now we had a clew that was worth 
 something, and were assured that she would 
 see her property back witbin thirty days. 
 Corona replied that she hoped she should ; 
 and that any clews which it were worth any 
 thing to anybody else to follow should have 
 her benedictions and her prayers, but that 
 her personal assistance must henceforth take 
 this more spiritual form. She urged that she 
 had now contributed as much to the support 
 of the detective system of the country as she 
 felt to be her quota, even from the most pa 
 triotic point of view ; the only thing lacking 
 to the completion of the situation was that 
 she had failed to pay Judas John's return ex 
 penses to New York. This, from an artistic 
 aspect, might be regretted. Messrs. Hide &
 
 192 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 Seek urged the matter a little. They went so 
 i'ar as to say that it was a very inter 
 ing episode, and that Judas Johns might in 
 fact have really been in the state of health 
 and courage which he represented. Sickness 
 quelled those fellows easily ; and he had 
 put himself into a neat trap if things went 
 against him. On the other hand, if he was 
 playing the sympathy dodge, seeing he was 
 dealing with a lady nothing was more 
 likely it would be equally interesting to 
 settle the point. 
 
 Corona admitted that it was a very inter 
 esting point ; but added that the looming 
 architecture of the almshouse of her native 
 State was nearer to the leisure of her imagi 
 nation at the present time. Not a five-cent 
 nickel more should she amuse herself by en 
 gulfing in the abyss which yawned between a 
 burgled bondholder and his property. The 
 burglar was welcome to her $500 Fee-Fi-Fum 
 and I. 0. U. He might retire from business 
 on the value of registration, live upon his 
 income, and become an innocent member of 
 society.
 
 WHAT IS CALLED FRIENDSHIP. 193 
 
 To this conclusion she had come ; and to 
 this she held. 
 
 When she told Puelvir so, Puelvir said it 
 was about time. She said they were nothing 
 but so many men folks, anyway ; and land ! 
 what could you expect? Did anybody ever 
 know a man to find anything, she 'd like to 
 know ? If it was his boot-buttoner or his 
 squash - hat, did n't he set till a woman 
 hunted of it up ? It was n't in the breed, 
 Puelvir said. 
 
 Puelvir felt as though her mistress, after a 
 dissipated career, had returned to the bosom 
 of the family. She petted her and made 
 much of her, as of a prodigal in an advanced 
 stage of penitence. They were quite by 
 themselves in these days the two women, 
 with Matthew Launcelot, and the pretty 
 horse ; for it was September in Fairharbor. 
 
 The summer guests had gone with the wild 
 roses and the mosquitoes. Only a few saun- 
 terers remained to dot the beach with grace 
 ful outlines ; and these were they to whom 
 
 the love of the sea is a passion, not a friend- 
 is
 
 194 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 ship. In the deserted scenery " T. H. Trader, 
 Boxes and Shocks," again became a promi 
 nent and interesting feature. The little gar 
 den-plots in front of the cottages lifted the 
 stray blossoms which had survived the botan 
 ical fact that flowers are not called upon to 
 grow on Cape Ann granite, and that all the 
 beds one makes wash off and trickle down, 
 and leave the seed and the ledge to fight it 
 out between them. What was properly called 
 " the garden " consisted now of one morning- 
 glory and one bachelor's button, and these 
 had a Septemberish look, as of a flower that 
 was feeling bilious but would not own it. 
 But the doryful of nasturtiums blazed brave 
 ly. The pads of the round leaves alone told 
 the tale of the dying year ; these were yel 
 lowing and paling ; a few tones behind the 
 blossom, like embroidery done in tints to 
 match. 
 
 It was lonely in Paradise ; but it was lovely 
 in Paradise ; there, as so often elsewhere, the 
 two came near to being the same thing. Co 
 rona, after the agitations of the summer, sank
 
 WHAT IS CALLED FRIENDSHIP. 195 
 
 back upon the cushion of her solitude, and 
 drew a deep breath. Puelvir came often on 
 the little errands and deceptions of affection 
 to see if she wanted anything, or wanted to 
 want anything. 
 
 Matthew Launcelot jumped into her lap 
 without the form of an invitation, and sat 
 solid upon her portfolio or her book. If she 
 intimated that some other location or position 
 would assist her occupations, he kissed her. 
 The Lady of Shalott came faithfully to the 
 clothes-post every day ; and when she did n't 
 have to be shod, or there was n't a nut needed 
 in the buggy, or Zero did n't think she had 
 a cold, and had better not go out, Corona 
 drove down the deepening days, over and over 
 and through the shore, the downs, the woods 
 of Essex, and the distant beaches of the 
 Cape ; and, as she drove, she loved every wave 
 and pebble, and the attitude of every leaf, 
 the countenance of each horizon : and for 
 this, as for all loving, grew stronger and more 
 capacious for love. She grew very fond, too, 
 of the Lady. Who could help it ? She was
 
 196 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 as dainty and feminine a creature as ever 
 made her nine or ten miles an hour, and an 
 swered to the voice with a sensitiveness which 
 made the bit seem a rudeness and the whip 
 ruffianly. Corona would have undergone an 
 other burglary for her, if she could have af 
 forded it. But Matthew Launcelot had never 
 forgiven the Lady of Shalott. It was one of 
 the exciting incidents in this solitary life 
 where little events have so much more artistic 
 proportion to the prospective than larger ones 
 do to a crowded history to try and teach 
 Matthew Launcelot to go to ride. This he 
 would do only under what is delicately known 
 in asylums as " restraint," howling to high 
 heaven all the time. One day his pro- 
 reached a climax that put an end to Corona's 
 educational efforts in that direction. As she 
 drove, holding the dog with a firm arm, and 
 the reins, watchful, with the fine senses of an 
 experienced driver, in one hand Matthew 
 Launcelot yelping as if he were having his 
 teeth extracted, and the Lady of Shalott, with 
 her head down, flying at a pretty pace up the
 
 WHAT IS CALLED FRIENDSHIP. 197 
 
 crowded street of the little town the dog, 
 with one mighty effort, released himself, 
 leaped over the dasher, and landed, shriek 
 ing murderously, directly upon the horse's 
 back. There was one black instant, one swift 
 struggle between horse and driver, a gath 
 ering of people, and rushing blindly to save 
 life ; but before hand could touch bridle, the 
 Lady had reared, stopped, shivered a little, 
 planted her feet, looked over her shoulder, 
 regarded the terrier with a kind of scorn, and 
 proudly stood perfectly still till he jumped 
 off. She disdained to run for him. 
 
 After this, reconciliation between Matthew 
 and the Lady was considered as one of the 
 abandoned hopes of life ; and the only antag 
 onism in Corona's harmonious family circle 
 remained unadjusted. 
 
 It was lovely in Paradise ; it was lonely in 
 Paradise. In the cool mornings of the blue- 
 and - gold weather Corona held to her fireside 
 with Puelvir and the dog. In the yellow 
 noons and nothing could be better than the 
 September noons in Fairharbor she basked
 
 198 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 upon the rocks and the brown, dry grass 
 which crackled beneath her as she stirred lazi 
 ly below the staggering sun umbrella to turn 
 the page that flapped against the rising wind. 
 
 Nothing could be better than the September 
 noons unless it were the September moons. 
 Then there seemed to arise upon the world 
 another Hood, as of the waters that were above 
 the waters. 
 
 In the glamour the ocean lifted itself to 
 meet that other sea. Silent sails glided across 
 the Harbor, like thoughts too timid to be 
 spoken. As one looked at them from the 
 shore, and watched them melt into the lon^ 
 shadow of the opposite coast, they seenu-d 
 like something precious and wasted. As one 
 looked from them into the water, the depths 
 seemed to be sucking down pearls, tossed by 
 the prodigal moon, one guessed not why; 
 and lost, one knew not where. 
 
 It was on a night of this sort that the in 
 cident which I have now to relate, for historv's 
 
 I 
 
 sacred sake, took place at the Old Maid's 
 Paradise. It was a warm night; one of tlu-
 
 WHAT IS CALLED FRIENDSHIP. 199 
 
 warmest that September hoards for her lovers, 
 and lavishes in outbursts of tenderness that 
 the soul remembers. 
 
 Corona was in the hammock on the piazza, 
 swinging idly there alone ; a scarlet shawl 
 hung over her dress of thick white flannel, and 
 was regarded with disfavor by Matthew Laun- 
 celot ; for the fringe tickled his ears. Now 
 and then Corona patted the dog absently, with 
 that manner which seems to say, You are 
 better than nobody ! and which a sensitive 
 dog will resent as well as a sensitive man. 
 Puelvir had gone to a prayer-meeting, on the 
 ground that she felt as if she should like to 
 go and set somewhere and sing alto. The 
 empty house was quite dark; and Corona's 
 figure in the white foreground seemed to ab 
 sorb a disproportionate amount of light. She 
 lay so still that she looked as if she were 
 carved there a statue of Solitude, content 
 and sweet. 
 
 When footsteps hit the crisp grass and 
 touched the lower step, she stirred, but did 
 not start.
 
 200 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 When a face unseen for God knew how 
 long ! flashed full before her in the great 
 breadth and extent of light, she did not cry 
 out nor spring. To a depth below all that 
 to such a depth as astonishment might 
 strike in the world that comes after this 
 she was let down, down, down ; and then JUT 
 soul stood still. 
 
 " You!" she said. "You?" And that 
 was all. 
 
 " You look just as you used to look," he 
 said immediately, in his old candid, blunt 
 fashion. " You have not changed." 
 
 " Are you sure ? " 
 
 " I am sure of nothing. I wished to see 
 you it is a good many years. May I come 
 up there? Don't move." 
 
 " It is a good many years." 
 
 " Don't get out of the hammock. I like 
 to see you there. You have not altered. I 
 thought you would have aged. I have." 
 
 " Yes ; I see. You look ill." 
 
 " I am not ill, but I am worn out. I have 
 had care and trouble. My daughter died in 
 July."
 
 WHAT IS CALLED FRIENDSHIP. 201 
 
 " Oh ! I did not know. It must have f ol- 
 lowed"- 
 
 " Yes ; she wore herself into this, taking 
 so much care and all that nursing. I could 
 not prevent it. Her mother's sickness was a 
 painful one. It cost two lives." 
 
 Corona, after a moment's hesitation, held 
 out her hand quite in silence ; words could 
 not have carried what it seemed idle to call 
 sympathy, and yet what she could call noth 
 ing else. He took her hand with evident 
 gratitude ; that trifling sign seemed to receive 
 him ; he drew a chair beside her hammock 
 and sat there, unbidden, looking down. 
 
 " I am coming to Fairharbor to stay for a 
 few weeks at the hotel if I may," he be 
 gan again. 
 
 " Fairharbor does not belong to ine." 
 
 " I thought it did. But I will not stay if 
 it be objectionable to you. I don't wish to 
 intrude on you. I never did. You know 
 that." 
 
 " How could it matter to me ? " said the 
 woman, quietly. She glanced at her empty
 
 202 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 house, at the lonely shore ; she did not look 
 at her old friend. 
 
 " That is a characteristic answer. I sup 
 pose it may be this time an honest one. 
 I am honest, too. I came down here worn 
 out, as I tell you. I wanted rest, and tin- 
 ocean. When I got here I found you were 
 here. So I came to see you. This is the 
 truth." 
 
 "Is it?" 
 
 " The holy and the whole. Do you mind 
 having me for a neighbor for a while ? " 
 
 " I don't know whether I do, or not. It 
 had not entered into my plans for the season. 
 . . . I 'm sorry for you, though ! You are 
 in affliction. You show it." 
 
 " You are just the same as ever ! " he broke 
 out in a ringing voice. " You have n't 
 changed either for worse or for better. You 
 h;ivt' kept all those ways you had " 
 
 He laughed a little ; in the nervous, half- 
 boyish manner of a lonely man who has been 
 traveling some time, and is glad to have some 
 body to laugh with, or even to laugh at.
 
 WHAT IS CALLED FRIENDSHIP. 203 
 
 This laugh seemed to surprise Corona. At 
 first she frowned at it ; then, before she knew 
 what she was doing, she had shared it. The 
 laugh cleared the atmosphere somehow ; laugh 
 ter, like tears, can be a powerful conductor ; 
 and Corona, rising to lift herself upon one 
 arm in the hammock, looked straight into 
 his face. 
 
 " Will you tell me what it is you want ? " 
 
 " A neighbor a comrade ; gentleness ; 
 and to be understood," he said, eagerly ; not 
 in the paltry tone of a man who would pro 
 tect himself, but in that of one who fears lest 
 he should overstep, " perhaps to sit on your 
 piazza now and then. I shan't bother you. 
 There might even be something I could do 
 some service. Is n't there some tinkering 
 about your house some odds and ends that 
 a man But I suppose you have learned to 
 do all these things for yourself." 
 
 " I have learned to do a good deal for 
 myself." 
 
 " You always did. You began so. But I 
 would n't be in your way, you know."
 
 204 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 " I suppose," said Corona, slipping to her 
 feet, and lifting her serious eyes again to 
 his, as the two stood so near and so sepa 
 rate, in the grave approach of their middle 
 life I suppose you refer to what is called 
 friendship."
 
 xn. 
 
 RECEIPTED BILLS. 
 
 " SOMETHING of that kind, I suppose," he 
 said. 
 
 " At our age," he added, " people ought to 
 be able to get on." 
 
 " I am sorry for you," she repeated. " You 
 are a bereaved man. It is my nature to be 
 very sorry. But I had not thought of mak 
 ing new friends." 
 
 " A new friend ! Pretty old one, Corona. 
 Have you forgotten ? " 
 
 The woman gave him an inscrutable look. 
 
 " In middle life," she said, " memory is 
 always a selection." 
 
 " I know we did n't get on then," he 
 urged, " but " 
 
 " Whose fault was that ? " she flashed. 
 
 " Was it mine ? " he cried.
 
 206 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 " Was it mine ? " she demanded. 
 
 They separated, walked the length of the 
 piazza, and returned, and stopped beside each 
 other ; both showed agitation ; but the woman 
 not a symptom of tenderness. It was he who 
 renewed the duel. 
 
 " I only asked the place of a neighbor 
 and a friend ; old or new, as you choose ; 
 the sense of not troubling any one ; the 
 knowing that I was welcome ; and not to be 
 always running against the thorns in your 
 fragrance." 
 
 " You always talked about my thorns ! 
 
 V J 
 
 You told me I was like that Indian tree whose 
 flowers were so so beautiful; but a man 
 tore his heart out before he could gather 
 them. That was one of your pointed speeches. 
 You made several." 
 
 " I thought it was you who said those 
 things. You have n't lost the faculty, I see. 
 . . . How you look in that white stuff in the 
 white light ; and how red that shawl is ! I 
 don't see that you have grown older in the 
 face by one day or night, since we used to 
 battle so."
 
 RECEIPTED BILLS. 207 
 
 " We always quarreled. We always shall. 
 Don't let us try anything of any kind any 
 more. Let the old gunpowder and the 
 old wounds go where all old emotions go. 
 I have lived without your friendship, sir, a 
 good many years ! " 
 
 " I have learned to do without it," she 
 added. 
 
 " Are you sure you could n't learn to do 
 with it ? " 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " We are not the same. We are different 
 people. Our lives lie between us. You have 
 become a widower ; and I, an old maid." 
 
 She said these words as if she laid down a 
 finality in the classification of species ; a set 
 of terms beyond which evolution ceased. He 
 smiled ; but she did not. 
 
 " It was you who did it 1 " he said, below 
 his breath. 
 
 She made him no reply. 
 
 " You could do it, too ! " 
 
 " And you could go out West and marry ! " 
 
 " I am a man," he said.
 
 208 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 " And I a woman." 
 
 " You told me I was a friend with one let 
 ter left out. It was the second letter too. Do 
 you remember that ? " 
 
 " And you told me there was an antago- 
 nisrn between us. You said I kept it up." 
 
 " And you told rue you 'd rather I had 
 been drowned yachting that summer than to 
 have lived to say something or other I said to 
 you one morning." 
 
 " I remember that. I meant it, too." 
 
 " I don't doubt you did. You meant them 
 all. You were the loveliest woman I ever 
 knew and the crudest ! " 
 
 " I was young, then," said Corona, in a 
 lower voice. 
 
 " We are both of us older," he said, more 
 gently. 
 
 "Puelvir is coming home," said Corona, 
 after a pause. " She will be shocked to find 
 me talking with a gentleman so late. There 
 is not a soul in the house, you know. She will 
 think she ought to bring her knitting-work 
 and sit on the piazza with us."
 
 RECEIPTED BILLS. 209 
 
 " Puelvir ? She is perhaps your cha- 
 perone ? " 
 
 "Puelvir is my cook. We live together 
 by ourselves. I am very fond of her. She 
 makes me quite happy." 
 
 " Ask Puelvir if I may come over and see 
 you to-morrow ; will you ? " 
 
 " Just as a neighbor ? " 
 
 " Just as a neighbor." 
 
 " And what you call a friend ? " 
 
 " Yes. What I call a friend." 
 
 " Not to quarrel or be terrible, as you used 
 to be?" 
 
 " To be different, as I have learned to be, 
 Corona. But whether we quarrel that 's 
 for you to say. It always was." 
 
 " There you go again ! We shall come 
 to the bayonet's point in five minutes. I 'm 
 afraid it 's in us. I 'm afraid we can't help it. 
 And, you see, I 've learned so well, so very 
 well, how to live without you." 
 
 " But you '11 ask Puelvir, won't you ? 
 There 'd be no harm in asking ; would 
 there ? "
 
 210 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 " N-n-no," said Corona, slowly. " Perhaps 
 not. I will ask Puelvir." 
 
 It was a matter of keen surprise to Corona 
 who, as may be remembered, had long 
 since ceased to expect things to find that a 
 neighbor made a difference. Absolutely it 
 did make a difference in life. To stir in the 
 morning, turning the opening eyes upon the 
 rising tide, and remember that something was 
 going to happen to-day this was a strange 
 matter. To lock the doors at night how 
 much later than she was used need not be 
 specified and shut herself in by the moon 
 lit windows, and watch the water ebb, as 
 thought was ebbing after flood, and say, " I 
 have had a pleasure to-day," or, " I shall have 
 another to-morrow," this, in Paradise, was 
 a novelty. To be watched as she moved 
 about on little errands, to be understood in 
 trifling things, to have small wishes respected 
 or even forestalled ; to share a drive, a walk, 
 u poem, tea, a full moon, a high tide, a letter, 
 or an anxiety to this grave and quiet com 
 radeship our sunny-hearted old maid adapted
 
 RECEIPTED BILLS. 211 
 
 herself with the calm content of one who 
 wished for nothing more than this ; and who 
 had so long lived on infinitely less that she 
 could readily lay it all down again when the 
 time came, and fall back upon her appren 
 ticeship of solitude, as people whose health 
 fails in a higher avocation fall back upon a 
 trade learned and stored away in the brain 
 cells long ago. 
 
 Nothing was more amazing than to see the 
 stir that a man made in this later Paradise. 
 Did the woman in that other make more? 
 It was a discovery to Corona that a man could 
 be put to so many intelligible uses. It seemed 
 incredible that a lock could be tinkered, a 
 slat mended, a blind hung, a loose nut discov 
 ered in an axle without riding si^ miles and 
 paying two dollars to achieve these high do 
 mestic ends. The mysteries of shoeing and 
 shorts assumed now a clearness amounting 
 to the commonplace. It was no longer found 
 necessary to keep the oat-barrel in the pantry 
 because the horse eat it up nights in the barn ; 
 methods of solving this problem evolved them-
 
 212 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 selves, one knew not how. Even that deli 
 cately balanced question, the precise length 
 at which you could teach Zero to tie a halter 
 so that the Lady could lie down if she want 
 ed to, and yet not break her leg if she did n't 
 want to, was disposed of with what seemed 
 to be superhuman ease. So strange, and 
 never the less strange, it grew, to have a man 
 in Paradise. 
 
 To Puelvir the novelty presented what we 
 are accustomed to call the other side of a 
 question. Puelvir was not happy. Between 
 the guest and the serving-maid existed a fixed 
 lack of sympathy, such as was accepted be 
 tween Matthew Launcelot and the Lady of 
 Shalott. One evening, when they were lock 
 ing the house at the abandoned hour of half- 
 past ten, Puelvir said, stiffly, to her mis 
 tress, 
 
 " I turned off the raspberry man for ?/ow." 
 " Dear me, Puelvir ! What can you possibly 
 mean ? " 
 
 Corona turned her laughing face, in which 
 the passing youth had been captured in these
 
 RECEIPTED BILLS. 213 
 
 pleasant days it was amazing how young 
 she could look ! Corona turned her bright 
 eyes upon the sober, faithful creature to 
 whom " what is called friendship " had not 
 happened. 
 
 " I mean what I say," said Puelvir, looking 
 gray. " And them two widderers besides. I 
 never thought it of you, Miss Corona, that 
 you 'd go back on me!" 
 
 Puelvir wiped two strange, big tears from 
 her gaunt cheeks. She said no more. She 
 felt that she had exhausted the deepest sub 
 ject of her life. 
 
 " Puelvir ! Come here, Puelvir ! Do you 
 think did you suppose have you imag 
 ined " - 
 
 " My folks give me common senses when I 
 was horned to 'em. There hain't no lunatics 
 in our fambly ; nor half-witted ones, neither. 
 We ain't eddicated, but we ken learn our 
 multiplication table. Some of us got so far 
 as the spellin'-book." 
 
 " But, Puelvir, upon my word of honor, I 
 have not once thought of such a thing; I am
 
 214 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 not it is too late for that, Puelvir. I have 
 no intentions in that direction, whatever. I 
 like my way of life better as I am. Evrii 
 if I did n't, the man does n't live who could 
 part me from you, Puelvir. You 've stood by 
 me you 've made my lonely home a comfort 
 to me. You might have known I would ap 
 preciate it." 
 
 " I never done it to be appreciated," beamed 
 Puelvir. She wiped her eyes and took to her 
 dusting vigorously. Her homely face shone. 
 
 " You must understand the case, Puelvir. 
 This gentleman is nothing but an old friend. 
 He will never be anything else to me. I can't 
 help being kind to him, Puelvir ; for he is in 
 such trouble " 
 
 " Think so ! " said Puelvir. " Acts like 
 it!" 
 
 " And he is such a very old friend " 
 
 " Hm-m-m-m ! " said Puelvir, solemnly. 
 " So that 's what you call a friend is it ? 
 You 'd ought to know your own business. It 
 ain't my place to free my mind ; I know it 
 ain't. I don't move in the upper classes, nor
 
 RECEIPTED BILLS. 215 
 
 I never did. But among my kind of folks 
 we call it keepin' company. Lord bless 
 you, Miss Corona, anyhow," added Puelvir. 
 " Call the creetur what you like. 'T ain't no 
 odds to me what name you give him, so 
 long 's he don't part us and amuses you. He 
 might as well make himself useful some ways. 
 I don't doubt it 's the first time in his life ; 
 you ken tell him I said so, if you want to." 
 
 He did make himself useful, in particular 
 about that burglary. With such masculine 
 vigor did he approve of Corona's determina 
 tion not to pursue the search for her prop 
 erty that he effectually crushed whatever re 
 capitulation of her decision Messrs. Hide & 
 Seek or feminine frailty may have suggested. 
 
 " Stop where you are," he said. "' " Stop 
 just here. It is like spiritualism or faro. 
 You will be drawn on by the invisible delusion 
 of the game, if you suffer it. You have done 
 the sensible thing. Now stick to it. Let me 
 see your bills for this affair, may I ? Suppose 
 we go over it together." 
 
 Corona had her lap full of bills ; receipted
 
 216 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 bills ; a frowning pile, built since the bur 
 glary. With a merry laugh, she tossed them 
 over. How amusing was care, with some one 
 on the sofa to make light of it ! 
 
 He took the bills, ran his eye over them, 
 took out his note-book and stylograph, and 
 quickly did a sum in addition ; whose items 
 he read aloud to Corona as follows : 
 
 For printing circulars $27 55 
 
 Postage 4 50 
 
 Travel of police 18 72 
 
 Detectives 225 37 } 
 
 Travel of police 2 35 
 
 Advertising 83 25 
 
 Agent to New York 50 00 
 
 Omnibus ticket to Judas Johns .... 25 
 
 Telegraphing 5 10 
 
 Travel and sundries 65 27 
 
 Total $482 
 
 " It is a pity," said Corona, after a pause. 
 "Can't we make it up to. $500 any way in 
 the world?" 
 
 "I'm afraid not. I've tried. It is a 
 pity."
 
 RECEIPTED BILLS. 217 
 
 " I see but one course open to me," said 
 Corona, brightening. " I must give a party. 
 I must give a party to Mr. Pushett and those 
 gentlemanly persons on the State force, and 
 Mr. Hide and Seek, and oh ! Mr. Judas 
 Johns, and the officers of the Fee-Fi-Fum 
 and I. 0. U. I must invite all my fellow- 
 creatures who have so nobly contributed to 
 the recovery of my property. That would 
 easily bring it up to $500, don't you think ? 
 We might call it ' The Detective Detected,' 
 or some other of those fashionable titles. It 
 would be a pleasant domestic scene." 
 
 " I '11 churn the ice-cream for you. May 
 I ? You don't know what ice-cream I can 
 make. I put a little pepper in it." 
 
 They looked at each other merrily, laugh 
 ing at their protoplasmic wit, as contented 
 people laugh at little things. 
 
 " On the whole," said Corona, " there is 
 an obstacle. My guests would all have to 
 have their traveling expenses paid, I suppose. 
 That goes without saying. At the last mo 
 ment some of them would telephone : ' Send
 
 218 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 $75 more, and I '11 come.' I 'm afraid it 
 would mount up. And over $500 I don't 
 see my way to go. I think we must aban 
 don the party." 
 
 She gathered up all her bills, and filed 
 them away in silence. He sat and watched 
 her. 
 
 " I wish," he said at last, in one of those 
 tentative tones which might pass for jest or 
 earnest, as the speaker chose, or as the lu-aivr 
 decreed " there is one other bill I wish I 
 could see receipted in full. I suppose you 
 think you have one against me ? I wish you 
 did n't. But I 'm afraid you do." 
 
 She made no answer to him just at that 
 moment. She felt choked. How should he 
 understand? How could he? No man who 
 could have let it all happen as it had could 
 understand. Deeper than ever delusion 
 sounded, she knew this; for then, for now, 
 and for all time. 
 
 Through her musings, as she sat there 
 silent still for what had she to say ? 
 there ran in characters fantastic the items of
 
 RECEIPTED BILLS. 219 
 
 that other account, kept in the ledger of a 
 woman's heart, by the stern book-keeper, 
 Time, who makes no false entry, and accred 
 its or discredits to the fraction of the bitter 
 or the blessed truth : 
 
 to Dr. 
 
 For putting a woman where she could not speak for 
 herself. 
 
 For not comprehending what she did n't say 
 
 For believing what she did. 
 
 For her suffering more than he was worth. 
 
 For her not minding whether he was worth it, or 
 not. 
 
 For fifteen years of separation. 
 
 For her living alone till she had rather live alone. 
 
 For sundries which cannot be recorded, and should 
 n't, if they could. 
 
 Received payment in full, . 
 
 "No, no!" cried the woman. "No! It 
 can never be done." 
 
 " I begin to see it all a little differently," 
 he urged, gently. " I don't say that I did n't 
 make mistakes. I should like In your 
 book-keeping, Corona, are not old debts out 
 lawed, sometimes ? "
 
 220 BURGLARS IN PARADISE. 
 
 She smiled, and shook her head ; and then 
 she shook her head, and smiled again. They 
 would be good friends, she said ; that AY as 
 much to be ; but for that other record, turn 
 the page, and speak of it no more. 
 
 He spoke of it no more ; at least, not then. 
 He was grateful to be her neighbor, her com 
 rade, and to serve her as he could. By that 
 ancient ladder, the golden ladder on AY Inch 
 the angels of trust and sympathy ascend to 
 human hearts by the old, old ladder of 
 Friendship, had the most dangerous house 
 breaker of all climbed up to Paradise ?
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 This booJjLts DUE on the last date stamped below 
 
 WAR 51983 
 
 MAY 7 1984 
 
 
 i 
 
 *>m - 1 2. 'S c
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 A A 000192000 8 
 
 PS 
 
 3142 
 B91 
 
 3 1158 00852 10
 
 ' p v.;i 
 *.t 
 
 -