American fiction -- 20th century; Short stories, American
The other well-known type is the burglar who wears a collar. He is
always referred to as a Raffles in real life. He is invariably a
gentleman by daylight, breakfasting in a dress suit, and posing as a
paperhanger, while after dark he plies his nefarious occupation of
burglary. His mother is an extremely wealthy and respected resident of
Ocean Grove, and when he is conducted to his cell he asks at once for a
nail file and the _Police Gazette_. He always has a wife in every State
in the Union and fiancées in all the Territories, and the newspapers
print his matrimonial gallery out of their stock of cuts of the ladies
who were cured by only one bottle after having been given up by five
doctors, experiencing great relief after the first dose.
The burglar wore a blue sweater. He was neither a Raffles nor one of
the chefs from Hell’s Kitchen. The police would have been baffled had
they attempted to classify him. They have not yet heard of the
respectable, unassuming burglar who is neither above nor below his
station.
This burglar of the third class began to prowl. He wore no masks, dark
lanterns, or gum shoes. He carried a 38-calibre revolver in his pocket,
and he chewed peppermint gum thoughtfully.
The furniture of the house was swathed in its summer dust protectors.
The silver was far away in safe-deposit vaults. The burglar expected no
remarkable “haul.” His objective point was that dimly lighted room
where the master of the house should be sleeping heavily after whatever
solace he had sought to lighten the burden of his loneliness. A “touch”
might be made there to the extent of legitimate, fair professional
profits—loose money, a watch, a jewelled stick-pin—nothing exorbitant
or beyond reason. He had seen the window left open and had taken the
chance.
The burglar softly opened the door of the lighted room. The gas was
turned low. A man lay in the bed asleep. On the dresser lay many things
in confusion—a crumpled roll of bills, a watch, keys, three poker
chips, crushed cigars, a pink silk hair bow, and an unopened bottle of
bromo-seltzer for a bulwark in the morning.
The burglar took three steps toward the dresser. The man in the bed
suddenly uttered a squeaky groan and opened his eyes. His right hand
slid under his pillow, but remained there.
“Lay still,” said the burglar in conversational tone. Burglars of the
third type do not hiss. The citizen in the bed looked at the round end
of the burglar’s pistol and lay still.
“Now hold up both your hands,” commanded the burglar.
The citizen had a little, pointed, brown-and-gray beard, like that of a
painless dentist. He looked solid, esteemed, irritable, and disgusted.
He sat up in bed and raised his right hand above his head.
“Up with the other one,” ordered the burglar. “You might be amphibious
and shoot with your left. You can count two, can’t you? Hurry up, now.”
“Can’t raise the other one,” said the citizen, with a contortion of his
lineaments.
“What’s the matter with it?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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