add to our worldly goods, while everybody else was suffering from
abstractions.

I did not, however, allow any relaxation in my vigilance in the
protection of my house and family. My time to suffer had not yet
arrived, and it might not arrive at all; but if it did come it should
not be my fault. I therefore carefully examined all the new precautions
my neighbours had taken against the entrance of thieves, and where I
approved of them I adopted them.

Of some of these my wife and I did not approve. For instance, a tin pan
containing iron spoons, the dinner bell, and a miscellaneous collection
of hardware balanced on the top stair of the staircase, and so connected
with fine cords that a thief coming up the stairs would send it rattling
and bounding to the bottom, was looked upon by us with great disfavour.
The descent of the pan, whether by innocent accident or the approach of
a burglar, might throw our little boy into a fit, to say nothing of the
terrible fright it would give my Aunt Martha, who was a maiden lady of
middle age, and not accustomed to a clatter in the night. A bull-dog in
the house my wife would not have, nor, indeed, a dog of any kind. George
William was not yet old enough to play with dogs, especially a sharp
one; and if the dog was not sharp it was of no use to have him in the
house. To the ordinary burglar-alarm she strongly objected. She had been
in houses where these things went off of their own accord, occasioning
great consternation; and, besides, she said that if thieves got into the
house she did not want to know it and she did not want me to know it;
the quicker they found what they came for and went away with it the
better. Of course, she wished them kept out, if such a thing were
possible; but if they did get in, our duty as parents of the dearest
little boy was non-interference. She insisted, however, that the room in