“The grease,” whispers Mr. Fibbes to his confederate, and the sashes being plentifully smeared with that application, the window opens noiselessly to the top. Admittance thus gained to the body of the place, our housebreakers are now fairly embarked on their enterprise. Their shoes are pulled off and stowed away in their pockets. The centre-bit is got in readiness, and Mr. Fibbes feels the edge of his long knife with a grim sense of dogged, bloodthirsty resolution. All is, however, in their favour. The scullery door is left open, and they reach the passage on the ground-floor without the slightest noise or hindrance. And here we may remark for the benefit of those who are affected by nervous apprehensions of their houses being “burglariously entered and their property feloniously abstracted,” to use the beautiful language of the law--that there is no precautionary measure better worth observing than that of carefully locking _on the outside_ the door of every room on the ground-floor, and leaving the key in the lock. There are three things, it is said, of which the housebreaker has a professional horror--a little dog loose, an infant unweaned, and a sick person _in extremis_. The first is an abomination seldom permitted where there is anything worth stealing; the second, a misfortune which Nature kindly suffers only to exist at considerable intervals; the third, a calamity to which we may hope not to be subjected _very_ often in a lifetime. In the absence, then, of these unwelcome defences, every door secured as above makes an additional fortification against the enemy. The thief having perhaps effected a skilful and elaborate entrance into your dining-room, where he finds no booty but an extinguished lamp and a volume of family prayers, must commit a fresh burglary before he can reach your study, or wherever you keep your small stock of ready money for household expenses; and though he came in at the window, reversing the usual order of things with an unwelcome visitor, he finds it no easy matter to get out at the door. The probability is he will hardly work through three solid inches of mahogany, for he cannot conveniently pick the lock, if the key is left in it, without some little noise. Thus (although to the damage of your upholstery) you get an additional chance of being aroused, and a few minutes more time to betake yourself to your weapons, whether they consist of an unloaded blunderbuss, a twelve-barrelled revolver (out of order), or a hand-candlestick and a short brass poker. In the meantime, your _placens uxor_, uttering piercing shrieks out at the window, alarms the country for miles round, and, what is more to the purpose, frightens the robber out of his wits, who decamps incontinently, leaving no further marks of his visit than a window-frame spoilt, an inkstand or a jar of curry-powder upset, and a small box of lucifer-matches, his own property, and seized on by you as the _spolia opima_ of this bloodless victory.