"'He is an old friend of mine,' said my father, 'and I haven't seen him for some little while now. About four months ago he borrowed of me a sextant, quadrant, and chronometer. They were instruments I took from old Captain Barney in payment of some work I did for him. I wasn't usin' them, and Williamson had bought a catboat and was studying navigation; but he has given up that fad now and has promised me over and over to send me back my instruments, but he has never done it. If I'd thought of it I would have stopped and got 'em of him; but I didn't think, and now I expect he has gone to bed. However, I'll row in shore and see; perhaps he's up yet.' "You see, ma'am," said the speaker to my wife, "I'm tellin' you all these particulars because I am very anxious you should understand exactly how everything happened on this night, which was the turning-point of my life." "Very good," said Aunt Martha; "we want to hear all the particulars." "Well, then," continued the burglar, "we pulled up to a stone wall which was at the bottom of Green's place and made fast, and father he got out and went up to the house. After a good while he came back and said that he was pretty sure Williamson Green had gone to bed, and as it wouldn't do to waken people up from their sleep to ask them for nautical instruments they had borrowed, he sat down for a minute on the top of the wall, and then he slapped his knee, not making much noise, though. "'By George!' he said, 'an idea has just struck me. I can play the prettiest trick on Williamson that ever was played on mortal man. Those instruments are all in a box locked up, and I know just where he keeps it. I saw it not long ago, when I went to his house to talk about a yacht he wants built. They are on a table in the comer of his bedroom. He was taking me through the house to show me the improvements he had made, and he said to me:-- "'"Martin, there's your instruments. I won't trouble you to take them with you, because they're heavy and you're not going straight home, but I'll bring them to you day after to-morrow, when I shall be goin' your way." "'Now, then,' said my father, 'the trick I'm thinkin' of playing on Williamson is this: I'd like to take that box of instruments out of his room without his knowing it and carry them home, having the boat here convenient; and then in a day or two to write to him and tell him I must have 'em, because I have a special use for 'em. Of course he'll be awfully cut up, not having them to send back; and when he comes down to my place to talk about it, and after hearing all he has to say, I'll show him the box. He'll be the most dumbfoundedest man in this State; and if I don't choose to tell him he'll never know to his dying day how I got that box. And if he lies awake at night, trying to think how I got it, it will serve him right for keeping my property from me so long.'