The Idiot at Home Page 16

  XV

  SOME CONSIDERATION OF THE BURGLAR

  "Are you ever bothered much by burglars off here in the country?" askedMr. Pedagog one spring afternoon, as he and the Idiot and the youngstersstrolled about the Idiot's small farm.

  "No," said the Idiot. "They've only visited me twice."

  "Only twice, eh?" observed the Schoolmaster. "Well, I should think thatwas often enough, considering that you haven't lived here more than ayear and a half."

  "It was," said the Idiot. "I didn't say I wanted them to come again, didI?"

  "Of course not," returned Mr. Pedagog. "But you said 'only twice,' as iftwo visits of that nature were less than might have been expected."

  "Well, aren't they?" asked the Idiot. "Just make a little calculation.I've lived on this place precisely five hundred and ninety-four days,and, of course, an equal number of nights. It seems to me that inbreaking into my house only twice when they might have come every nightshows a degree of restraint upon our Suburban Burglary Company that isworthy of the highest commendation. You, of course, refer toprofessional burglars, don't you?"

  Mr. Pedagog laughed. "Are there any amateur burglars?"

  "Are there!" ejaculated the Idiot. "Well, rather. There is the Gasman,and man who inspects the water-meter, and the Iceman, and the Plumber.If you refer to that class, why, I have them with me always."

  "Which of the two classes do you prefer?" asked Mr. Pedagog, with achuckle.

  "Well, I'm not quite sure as to that," returned the Idiot. "I've oftenwondered myself whether I preferred the straight-out honest pirate, whodoes his work surreptitiously by night, and who doesn't pretend to beanything but a pirate, or the sleek, insinuating chap, who comes intoour house by day, and runs up a bill against you which in his heart ofhearts he knows is not a proper one. There are burglars and burglars inthis world, Mr. Pedagog, and the one who lands in the penitentiary isnot always a bigger rascal than the fellow who holds the respect of thecommunity and sets himself up as a prominent citizen. Highwaymen may bedivided into classes, some of them respectable, others not. There wasDick Turpin, who ran honest risks to obtain a living; there are men inWall Street who work greater ruin, and are held in higher esteem. Thereis the footpad who takes your watch, and pawns it to buy bread for hisstarving family, and there is the very charming young person who sitsbehind a table at a church fair, and charges you seven dollars for afifty-cent sofa-cushion. So it goes. Socially I prefer the esteemedcitizen who makes me pay twenty-eight dollars for ten dollars' worth ofgas; but when it comes down to a strict business basis I must say I havelost less money through the operations of the professional thief thanthrough those of the amateur highwayman. Take a recent case in my ownexperience, for instance. Only last week I sent anonymously a smallclock which cost me twenty dollars to a guild fair here in town, andMrs. Idiot bought it for a birthday present for me for forty dollars. Inother words, I have a twenty-dollar clock on my hands that has cost mesixty dollars."

  "But you have the satisfaction of knowing that you have contributed tothe good work of the guild," suggested Mr. Pedagog.

  "That is true enough," said the Idiot; "but the guild is only fortydollars to the good. They'd have been better off if I had given themfifty dollars in cash, and I'd have saved ten."

  "But you have the clock," insisted Mr. Pedagog.

  "I certainly have," replied the Idiot; "and if time is money I shallsoon be rich, for that clock makes time to beat the band. If it keeps onas it has started and we stand by it, we shall soon be about a monthahead of the sun. It gains a week every forty-eight hours. If that clockwere truthful, I should be a centenarian at forty."

  "But you're not sorry you gave it?" said Mr. Pedagog, deprecatingly.

  "Not at all," said the Idiot. "My only regret is that Mrs. I. bought it.But," he added, hastily, "she needn't know that."

  "I won't say a word," said Mr. Pedagog.

  "I won't, neither, pa," said Tommy, with a degree of complacency whichshowed that the temptation to tell was great.

  "Well, I won't say mor'n two or three words about it, anyhow," put inMollie, not anxious to commit herself to perpetual silence on thesubject.

  "It is the most beautiful clock I ever saw," said the Idiot, quickly,realizing the possibilities of Mollie's two or three words.

  "That's what I fink," said Mollie, "and I'm goin' to tell mamma that yousaid so."

  "All right," said the Idiot. "Suppose you and Tommy run right up andtell her now."

  "I'd rather hear you talk, pa," said Tommy.

  "He does take after you, doesn't he?" said Mr. Pedagog.

  "Yes," said the Idiot, "he does. He likes to hear me talk as much as Ido, bless him!"

  "It is a commendable sign in a son," observed Mr. Pedagog. "But tellabout the two professionals. Did they get anything?"

  "They did," said the Idiot. "And at the same time I lost nothing. Thefirst chap came on the scene, along about two o'clock in the morning. Hewas a very industrious mechanic, and I regret to say he was notadequately paid for his services. He tackled the safe." At this pointthe Idiot threw back his head and laughed heartily.

  "I have seen the safe," said Mr. Pedagog, "and to tell you the truth, mydear Idiot, I have wondered at your choosing so obvious a receptacle foryour valuables. It does not, to my mind, deny itself as a safe should.It advertises the fact that your silver, your wife's jewels perhaps, arewithin. I have spoken once or twice to our friend Mr. Brief about it."

  "No doubt," replied the Idiot. "However, I can't see why a safe has anydisadvantages."

  "It lies in this," said Mr. Pedagog, impressively. "You confess at onceto the burglar the exact location of the things he's after. Without asafe your silver, or Mrs. Idiot's jewels, such as they are, might befound anywhere in the house. But when you take the trouble to buy asafe, any burglar in creation who has ordinary common-sense must knowthat your valuables are concentrated in that one spot."

  "That, I rejoice to say," said the Idiot, "is the burglar's view."

  "You should not rejoice," said Mr. Pedagog, with some of his old-timeseverity. "You make his work so comparatively easy that he is content tofollow a base profession, as you have termed it. Truly, I wonder at you.You place on your first floor a bald safe--"

  "I haven't seen any advertised as having a full head of hair," observedthe Idiot, complacently.

  "You misunderstand me," said Mr. Pedagog. "When I say bald I meanevident, plain, obvious. You practically say: Here are the things whichI value. What is to be found within this safe, Mr. Burglar, _are thevery things you are after_. Therefore, say you to the burglar: Attackthis safe. Break it open, rifle it of its contents; in other words, hereis the swag, as I believe it is called."

  "You are wholly right," said the Idiot. "I bought that safe for thatprecise reason, and I bought a big one and a strong one. But you don'tknow the story of that safe, do you, Mr. Pedagog?"

  "I do not," said the Schoolmaster.

  "Then let me tell you," said the Idiot. "That safe has been broken open,and by a professional burglar. The burglar had his tools, and he hadhis expert knowledge of their use. He arrived at my house, as I recallthe situation, somewhere about--ah--two o'clock at night. He bored atthe lock until three. He fooled about the combination. He did everythingthat a respectable burglar might be expected to do, and--"

  "He failed, of course, since you say you have lost nothing," said Mr.Pedagog.

  "Not at all," said the Idiot. "After two hours and fifty-five minutes'work on that safe he got it open. And--"

  "And?" queried Mr. Pedagog.

  "He found it empty," said the Idiot; "absolutely empty. There was not aspoon, a fork, a tea-pot, or a diamond necklace, or even a scrap ofpaper in it."

  "Then why do you have it," said Mr. Pedagog.

  "Merely to keep the burglar busy while he is in my house, and to makehim expert in honest work. An ordinary mechanic, intelligent enough toget that safe open by night or by day, would be entitled to at least twodollars for his service
s. The individual involved got it open; and whenhe opened it--"

  "Found nothing!" cried Mr. Pedagog.

  "Exactly," said the Idiot, pulling away on his cigar. "I suppose Ishould have left a check inside payable to bearer for a dollar and ahalf to compensate him for his trouble, but I am so neglectful that Ireally didn't."

  "And you bought a safe--"

  "Merely to provide employment for the unemployed burglar," said theIdiot. "That is all a safe is good for, Mr. Pedagog. Experience hasshown that the house-safe isn't worth the paint it is covered with inthe matter of protection. But as a decoy it works to a charm. A safe, inother words, is a splendid thing to keep things out of, as well as tokeep the burglar busy while he is your guest. If our particular visitorhad not spent all his time breaking the safe open he might have beenable to locate our spoons."

  "It is a pity," said Mr. Pedagog, dryly, "that you did not add to theimpression the futility of his work made upon his mind a short note ofadmonition indicating to him that he might be in better business."

  "My dear Mr. Pedagog," said the Idiot, "that would have been rude.Invited or otherwise, the man was a guest in my house, and a note ofthat kind would have savored of sarcasm, or, if not, would have placedme in the position of having taken advantage of my guest's weakness tobe facetious at his expense."

  "You take an original view of it," said Mr. Pedagog.

  "Not a bit of it," returned the Idiot. "I got the idea from a Bostongirl. Once when she and her sister-in-law found themselves alone atnight in a huge country-house they were suddenly overcome with fear ofburglars, and rather than run any personal risk from the midnightmarauder they left a big card on top of the safe inscribed with thesewords: 'Dear Sir,--The combination of this safe is 11-16-91. There isnothing in it. If you must have our silver, call at the Shawmut SafeDeposit Company, where it is now stored.' The two girls were cousins ofmine."

  The Schoolmaster smiled again. "There must be a streak of yourparticular kind of genius running all through your family," said he.

  "True--there is," said the Idiot. "I'm not the only Idiot in my tribe."

  "And the second burglar. How about him?" asked Mr. Pedagog.

  "Oh, he was easy," said the Idiot. "I compromised with him. You see, Imet him on his way out. I was coming home late, and just as I arrived hewas leaving. I invited him back, lit the gas in the dining-room, andasked him to join me in a bit of cold tongue and a bottle of beer. Hetried to shuffle out of it, but when I said I preferred to reason withhim rather than have him arrested he sat down, and we talked thesituation over. I discovered that for about three hundred dollars' worthof my stuff that he had in a bag slung over his shoulder he might get asmuch as fifty dollars, and at great risk. I showed him how foolish thatwas, and offered to give him forty dollars if he'd leave the stuff, sosaving me two hundred and sixty dollars, and avoiding all trouble forhimself. He didn't like it at first, but under the genial influence ofthe beer and the cold tongue and my conversation he finally yielded, andwalked out of my house with a check drawn to bearer for forty dollars inhis pocket."

  "I am astonished at you!" cried Mr. Pedagog. "You compounded a felony."

  "Not exactly," said the Idiot. "I should have done so if I hadn'tstopped payment on the check the next day."

  "Oh," said Mr. Pedagog, "I see!"

  "All I lost was the revenue-stamp on the check," said the Idiot.

  "And did you ever hear from the man again?"

  "Yes," observed the Idiot. "I met him on the train a day or twolater--sat next to him in the smoking-car, in fact."

  "And did he know you?"

  "Yes. We had a very pleasant chat going to town. He said he was movingaway from here. He couldn't stand it, he said. He was going to work insome new field where a man could get living pay for his work. Said he'dbeen robbed by some of our best people; what's the use of working fornothing? he asked. The poor man was kept down, and all that sort oftalk."

  "And you parted friends?"

  "Yes," said the Idiot. "I felt rather sorry for him, and when he saidgood-bye I gave him a cigar and a five-dollar bill, and that was the endof him. I have since received a letter from him in which he said that mykindness was appreciated, and that I could leave my valuables out on thelawn all night hereafter with perfect impunity. 'There isn't a thief inour whole suburban gang would be mean enough to touch it after yourkindness to me,' he wrote."

  "Extraordinary!" said Mr. Pedagog.

  "Very," said the Idiot. "Nevertheless, I have not taken his hint aboutleaving my silver out-of-doors, and have worked as hard as ever on mypatent burglar-alarm."

  "Oh, indeed! Have you a new idea in that line?" asked the Schoolmaster.

  "Yes," said the Idiot. "It is wholly novel. It is designed to alarm theburglar, and not scare the people in the house. Did you ever hear ofanything like that before?"

  "Never!" ejaculated Mr. Pedagog, with enthusiasm. "How is it to work?"

  "That," said the Idiot, "is what I am trying to find out. When I do I'lllet you know, Doctor."