An experienced man, Shorty did not hurry with the task. He went over the trunks of the servants first, but found nothing worth lifting but a small gold brooch and a silver ring. The ring was not worth two shillings, and Shorty was at one moment inclined to toss it back into the box, but he changed his mind and took it with him. He should have left it. Leaving the servants’ room, with many an inward imprecation on them for keeping bank books instead of money in their boxes, Shorty softly ranged through all the other rooms and bedrooms within his reach, and soon had quite a respectable pile of plunder gathered into his capacious coloured cotton handkerchief. He took nothing but articles of jewellery and the contents of two ladies’ purses, which he found in one of the bedrooms; and among the articles there chanced to be a very heavy gold chain—either a bailie’s or a provost’s chain of office. Although the haul was a fair one, Shorty was dissatisfied, for he had expected to get something out of the plate chest in the tablemaid’s room. He found the room and the chest in it conveniently open, but inconveniently empty. All the plate was on the dinner table, or downstairs ready to be placed there, and Shorty, forgetting that he owed his ease and success to the dinner and guests, was ungrateful enough to curse both. Even thieves are never content. In leaving by the attic window Shorty was careful to close the window after him, a circumstance which afterwards led to some confusion on our part, as the servants, finding it thus closed, declared most positively—probably to screen themselves from blame—that the window had not only been closed, but firmly fastened on the inside. This statement led us to think that, during the confusion of the party, the thief might have entered by the front door and made his escape in the same manner. There was some hunting and examination in the direction of the roof, and the hatch in the adjoining street was found to have been forced, but at the time that led to nothing. Had we even guessed at the curious incident which had followed Shorty’s exit on to the roof our action would have been very different. It is these unlooked-for events which continually trip up the most astute. We suffered by the slip, but we did not suffer alone. When Shorty got out on the slates, carrying his handkerchief of valuables, he found something more deserving of cursing than the dinner—namely, a clear sky and a tolerably bright moon. Speaking rapidly and energetically under his breath, he crawled along, keeping on the safest side of the roof till he could do so no longer, having to go forward to make his way over a range of chimney cans. As chance would have it, at the same time he glanced anxiously down on the steep street running down towards that spot, and saw the policeman of the beat looking, as he fancied, in his direction. Not only did the officer look, but he made some motion with his hand, and crossed the road as if to come nearer.