this other whom I mentioned. It was his plan to secure respectable employment in the immediate neighborhood of stealable prop erty. Thus no mention was ever made in the newspaper stories, which invariably fol lowed his exploits, of suspicious characters having been seen lurking about the premises. The telegraph—so potent a factor in the cap ture of ordinary thieves— might as well have had no existence so far as he was concerned. And when the average county sheriff or police official cannot send out what he calls an ' alarm ' he is—well, he is stumped, as the expression is." Which is more truthful than poetical, gentlemen, as most of us have had occasion to observe. The robbery of which he told me seemed identical with the one at Stilsonville. The thief had obtained a position in a wealthy man's household in an isolated community, and had by sheer force of a charming person ality ingratiated himself into the wealthy man's confidence. He had remained nearly a year, during which time he had received fairly good wages and a comfortable living besides—in fact, had honestly accumulated something over three hundred dollars in cash. At the end his opportunity had come, and he had removed several thousand dollars from his employer's strong box; had stood trial for the robbery because he had been the only one who could, under any possibility, have committed it; and, having been declared innocent, had departed for other fields in which to exercise his peculiar talent. On the night of the robbery he had been in his employer's room at bedtime. " And," said this chance acquaintance of mine, " he had placed the candle in its accustomed place upon the bureau, arranging the while the other articles which were upon the bureau so that the light might shine clearly upon the strong box. Some days previous, when the box had been empty and his employer absent, he had filed the catch of the lock so that it failed to perform its office, although any person who turned the key in the lock
would have noticed nothing wrong. It was easy for him, while at the bureau that night, to remove the package of money from the box and insert another package in its stead, for he had prepared the water for his employers' in variable face and hand bath with spirits of ammonia, and that worthy man was fora mo ment or two quite blinded by tears. Both packages were tied with dark-colored string, but the string, about the false package was a fuse, one end of which he trained quite invis ibly so that it hung out at the end of the box. Beyond this, he trusted to his employer." "Trusted to his employer! " I exclaimed; "I do not understand." "No?" said my acquaintance, smiling. " It was quite simple, I assure you. The wind blew strongly from the east that night. The window of the room was on the east side. His employer never failed to open the window a bit, to afford ventilation, the last thing before getting intp bed. The thief calculated that the wind would blow the flame of the candle against the fuse after the candle had burned two hours, and his calculations were correct, as they should have been, for he had demon strated the correctness of his figures care fully before making his last move, so to speak. Ah, it was fine work! " " Yes, but why did he not ignite the fuse himself? " I asked. My acquaintance looked at me as though I had pained him. " You evidently were not cut out for an artist of that sort," he said rather disgustedly. " A burning fuse smells. Besides, he considered that his em ployer would probably take a glance into the box before retiring, and in such an event the job would be bungled. Now, the sub stitute package was composed of celluloid— thin sheets, cleverly painted. In the bot tom of the package, connected with the fuse, was a diminutive nytro-glycerine cartridge— of power quite sufficient to throw the lid of the box upwards, and to dissipate the charred remains of the fuse. Of course, the cellul oid, once ignited, left practically no remains. If you have ever burned a piece of celluloid
