“We got to get action, Soapy, or we’ll be left. To think of that little Chimp doing us dirt just goes against my better nature. How would it be if you was to go down to-night and do some more porch climbing? Once you were in, you could get the stuff easily. It wouldn’t be a case of hunting around same as last time.” “Well, sweetie,” said Mr. Molloy frankly, “I’ll tell you. I’m not so strong for that burgling stuff. It’s not my line and I don’t like it. It’s awful dark and lonesome in that joint at three o’clock in the morning. All the time I was there I kep’ looking over my shoulder, expecting old Finky’s ghost to sneak up on me and breathe down the back of my neck.” “Be a man, honey!” “I’m a man all right, petty, but I’m temperamental.” “Well, then----” said Dolly, and breaking off abruptly, plunged into thought. Mr. Molloy watched her fondly and hopefully. He had a great respect for her woman’s resourcefulness, and it seemed to him from the occasional gleam in her vivid eyes that something was doing. “I’ve got it!” “You have?” “Yes, sir!” “There is none like her, none,” Mr. Molloy’s glistening eye seemed to say. “Give us an earful, baby,” he begged emotionally. Dolly bent closer and lowered her voice to a whisper. The woman in the bugles, torpid with much limado, was out of ear-shot, but a waitress was hovering not far away. “Listen! We got to wait till the guy Shotter is out of the house.” “But he’s got a man. You told me that yourself.” “Sure he’s got a man, but if you’ll only listen I’ll tell you. We wait till this fellow Shotter is out----” “How do we know he’s out?” “We ask at the front door, of course. Say, listen, Soapy, for the love of Pete don’t keep interrupting! We go to the house. You go round to the back door.” “Why?” “I’ll soak you one in a minute,” exclaimed Dolly despairingly. “All right, sweetness. Sorry. Didn’t mean to butt in. Keep talking. You have the floor.” “You go round to the back door and wait, keeping your eye on the front steps, where I’ll be. I ring the bell and the hired man comes. I say, ‘Is Mr. Shotter at home?’ If he says yes, I’ll go in and make some sort of spiel about something. But if he’s not, I’ll give you the high sign and you slip in at the back door; and then when the man comes down into the kitchen again you’re waiting and you bean him one with a sandbag. Then you tie him up and come along to the front door and let me in and we go up and grab that stuff. How about it?” “I bean him one?” said Mr. Molloy doubtfully. “Cert’nly you bean him one.” “I couldn’t do it, petty,” said Mr. Molloy. “I’ve never beaned anyone in my life.” Dolly exhibited the impatience which all wives, from Lady Macbeth downward through the ages, have felt when their schemes appear in danger of being thwarted by the pusillanimity of a husband. The words, “Infirm of purpose, give me the sandbag!” seemed to be trembling on her lips.