"I suppose he wants jewelry, but he is not acquainted with the house and he thinks it is in the cellar. I don't like to disappoint a burglar whom I am not acquainted with, and who has done me no harm, but if he had had common sagacity enough to inquire, I could have told him we kept nothing down there but coal and vegetables. Still it may be that he is acquainted with the place, and that what he really wants is coal and vegetables. On the whole, I think it is vegetables he is after." "Are you going down to see?" "No; I could not be of any assistance. Let him select for himself; I don't know where the things are." Then she said, "But suppose he comes up to the ground floor!" "That's all right. We shall know it the minute he opens a door on that floor. It will set off the alarm." Just then the terrific buzzing broke out again. I said, "He has arrived. I told you he would. I know all about burglars and their ways. They are systematic people." I went into the bath-room to see if I was right, and I was. I shut off the dining-room and stopped the buzzing, and came back to bed. My wife said, "What do you suppose he is after now?" I said, "I think he has got all the vegetables he wants and is coming up for napkin-rings and odds and ends for the wife and children. They all have families--burglars have--and they are always thoughtful of them, always take a few necessaries of life for themselves, and fill out with tokens of remembrance for the family. In taking them they do not forget us: those very things represent tokens of his remembrance of us, and also of our remembrance of him. We never get them again; the memory of the attention remains embalmed in our hearts." "Are you going down to see what it is he wants now?" "No," I said, "I am no more interested than I was before. They are experienced people,--burglars; _they_ know what they want; I should be no help to him. I _think_ he is after ceramics and bric-a-brac and such things. If he knows the house he knows that that is all that he can find on the dining-room floor." She said, with a strong interest perceptible in her tone, "Suppose he comes up here!" I said, "It is all right. He will give us notice." "What shall we do then then?" "Climb out of the window." She said, a little restively, "Well, what is the use of a burglar-alarm for us?" "You have seen, dear heart, that it has been useful up to the present moment, and I have explained to you how it will be continuously useful after he gets up here." That was the end of it. He didn't ring any more alarms. Presently I said, "He is disappointed, I think. He has gone off with the vegetables and the bric-a-brac, and I think he is dissatisfied."