The householder is a regular man; not to be balked of his burglar he opens up with a six-shooter and empties it at you. After the first shot you instinctively begin making side jumps like a bucking broncho. You don’t make as much distance, but you reduce your chance of getting hit. Every time the gun goes off you can feel the slug boring a hole in your back. You don’t realize it has already passed you when you hear the pistol crack. His gun empty, his shooting stops. You feel like throwing a few slugs in his direction; but, well, you are in the wrong. You are safe now, it would only make matters worse if you hit him, and besides, he and his pistol and his dog have made enough noise already to rouse the neighborhood and you’re lucky if you can get out of the block without bumping into Mr. “John Law.” You make a big detour and get downtown safely, so exhausted from the intense physical and mental concentration that you are barely able to drag one foot after the other. Yes, reader, I’ll admit you might go to your room and to bed and drift off into sweet, refreshing slumbers; but I never could do it. I always had to hunt up a hop joint and roll myself a few pills, “just for the good of my nerves.” You are still a burglar, reader. You get up the next evening, put on a different suit and hat, and go out for your “breakfast.” You dismiss from your mind the incident of last night as lightly as a gambler would forget the loss of a few dollars. You remember the dog that recognized you in the hotel barroom years before, and with the thought that it would be well to keep out of this mastiff’s neighborhood you turn your mind to the business of the night. You take a long time to eat, looking through all the papers. You read about a burglar “shivering somewhere in his lair after escaping in a panic of fear from Mr. ——— and his mastiff and pistol.” This makes you mad. You say to yourself: “What do those reporters expect of a man? Do they want him to shoot everybody in sight, cut the dog’s throat, carry out everything valuable, and burn the house down? Can’t they understand that the burglar’s first thought is the loot and his second thought is to get out of the house as quietly and quickly as possible without harming people when they wake up on him? And what madness for the householder to try to corner a burglar in the dark, prepared to resist capture but not to kill for loot. When he senses a burglar in his house, why can’t he say in a loud voice, ‘Is that you, Percy?’ and give him a chance to fade away quietly? He’ll do it. He knows there are plenty of other houses.”