Martinsburg independent. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1875-1900, 1888-11-03
MIDNIGHT BURGLAR.
Some Interesting Stories Abont Him.
WOMEN VINO WRAP THEMSELVES IN HoR-
nIBLE sUsPIcIoNs--NEw MARRIED
COUPLES AND THE scARE--oNE FIERCE
PRowLER CAUGHT.
pen,,es,n Cleveland Unlon.

PepIffS IN CttNct0ftN C'sN0fs'
The tendency in the average wo-
man to look under the bed for bur
glars appears to have been inherited
from the very beginning of time it
self. 1t would be safe to rattle on it
that Mother Eve got down on her
hands and knees, peeped anNiously
under the bed and awoke Adam out
of sound sleep to make him go
down stairs and see whether the she'd
door was properly fastened, upon her
very first night on earth. This par
ticular phase of female nature IS al
ways nerve irritating revelation to
the newly-married man. A newly
married couple recently moved into
the neighborhood of which | am
resident for a few minutes each
week. For the first few evenings
they sat on the porch and gazed at
the moon, while great waves of de-
light washed over them and big
thrills of love capered up and down
Their spines. But after while the
nature of the bride began to assume
its normal condition again, and one
night her husband found her glaring
cautiously under the bed. He smiled
broadly, but that was because he
didn't realize what was in store for
him. She had hurriedly crawled in
to bed, when the wind slammed a
loose blind shut. This caused her
to pull the sheets over her bangs and
tremble so violently as to shake two
Stats out of the bed and cause a Sec
ton of plastering to drop from the
| ceiling. Then the rusty hinge on
the blind gave slight squeak, and a
feminine voice, hoarse with horror,
remarked In stage whisper; "Now,
Charley, / do believe that outside
kitchen door is unlocked. / wish
you'd go and see." Then Charley
got up and danced around on the
cold kitchen floor in his bare feet,
and finding the door carefully locked,
bolted and barricaded, he sprained
every toe on his right foot by JAM
ming it up against the leg of the
kitchen table, and hoped back into
the room with his foot in his hand
and cuss words in his mouth. He
pre- pared to retire again when the
voice groaned out : "Do go and try
| that closet window, / believe in my
heart that catch don't work right.
He finally crawled into bed, and just
as he was doing off he realized that
some one was trying to shake his
| arm out of it's socket. He awoke with
a start. A smothered whisper come
out somewhere from beneath the
bedclothes. "Histl Do you hear
that noise? I knew there was some
one in the house! Oh, dear oh,
| dear |" Sure enough there was a
| slight scratching sound. BY this
time he was mad. He sailed forth,
kicked the cat so enthusiastically that
she struck the ceiling and bounded
! against all four walls Of the shed, be-
fore reaching the door, and after
slamming the door hard enough to
| make the neighbors anxiously inquire
of each other next morning where
| the earthquake was, he once more got
into bed and pulled the quilts over
his side This program--with such
variations as the architecture of the
house and the nervous excitability
of the female inmates suggested, was
performed with such exasperatins
regularity chat the new head OF The
household felt that it whould be a
positively pleasant relief to awake
some night and find the whole house
| full of burglars. 1t isa curious scien-
tific fact, however, that woman
never lies so quiet and sleeps so
sound at any time, as she does when
the burglars are actually burgling
| and the house is fairly over.run with
midnight marauders. Occasionally,