And there are still other objections to shooting a burglar. If
all burglars were fat, one of these would be removed; but perhaps
a thin burglar might get in front of my revolver, and in that
case the bullet would be likely to go right through him and
continue on its way, and perhaps break a mirror or a cut-glass
dish. I am a thin man myself, and if a burglar shot at me he
might damage things in the same way.

I thought all these things over when we decided to build in the
suburbs, for Sarah is very nervous about burglars, and makes me
get up at the slightest noise and go poking about. Only the fact
that no burglar had ever entered our flat at night had prevented
what might have been a serious accident to a burglar, for I made
it a rule, when Sarah wakened me on such occasions, to waste no
time, but to go through the rooms as hastily as possible and get
back to bed; and at the speed I travelled I might have bumped
into a burglar in the dark and knocked him over, and his head
might have struck some hard object, causing concussion of the
brain; and as a burglar has a small brain a small amount of
concussion might have ruined it entirely. But as I am a slight
man it might have been my brain that got concussed. A father of a
family has to think of these things.

The nervousness of Sarah regarding burglars had led me in this
way to study the subject carefully, and my adoption of jet-black
pajamas as nightwear was not due to cowardice on my part. I
properly reasoned that if a burglar tried to shoot me while I was
rushing around the house after him in the darkness, a suit of
black pajamas would somewhat spoil his aim, and, not being able