perhaps some labour in forcibly opening a door or a window-shutter,
would not cease for a moment in pursuance of their self-imposed task to
partake of the refreshments so conveniently left behind them by the
occupants of the house when they retired to rest. Should my surmises be
correct, I might reasonably expect, should my house be broken into, to
find an unconscious burglar in the library when I went down in the
morning. And I was sure, and my wife agreed with me, that if I should
find a burglar in that room or any other part of the house, it was
highly desirable that he should be an unconscious one.

Night after night I set my burglar trap, and morning after morning I
locked it up in the closet. I cannot say that I was exactly disappointed
that no opportunity offered to test the value of my plan, but it did
seem a pity that I should take so much trouble for nothing. It had been
some weeks since any burglaries had been committed in the neighbourhood,
and it was the general opinion that the miscreants had considered this
field worked out and had transferred their labours to a better-paying
place. The insult of having been considered unworthy the attention of
the knights of the midnight jimmy remained with us, but as all our goods
and chattels also remained with us we could afford to brook the
indignity.

As the trap cost nothing my wife did not object to my setting it every
night for the present. Something might happen, she remarked, and it was
just as well to be prepared in more ways than one; but there was a point
upon which she was very positive.

"When George William is old enough to go about the house by himself,"
she said, "those decanters must not be left exposed upon the table. Of
course I do not expect him to go about the house drinking wine and