Waterbury evening Democrat., 1893-07-06
A BURGLARY.

Ionce knew two industrious mechanics named Pierre and Baptiste. They dwelt in ramshackle tenement at Sault aux Belouil, where each had dozen chil- dren to support besides their wives, who, it is grievous to relate, were drones. They were only nominally acquainted with that goodly art commonly asso- ciated with charwomen.
 Pierre and Baptiste were hard workers. They worked far into the night and oc- casionally the thin mists of dawn had begun to break on the narrow city pave ments before their labors would cease. No one could truthfully say that theirs was not g hard earned pillow. Some times they did not toll in vain. It de- pended largely upon the police.
 It was early one November that this horny handed pair planned the bur- glary of certain safe located in a whole sale establishment in St. Mark street. On the particular evening that Pierre and Baptiste hit upon for the deed the head bookkeeper had been having a wrangle with his accounts.
 tI can't make head or tail of thist" he declared to his employer, the senior member of the firm, 'tyet am con- yinced everything must be right. An error of several hundred dollars has been carried over from each daily footing, but where the error begins or ends I'm blessed if can find out"
 The fact was that the monthly sales had been unusually heavy, and a pageof the balance had been misled. The head bookkeeper spent upward of an hour in casting up both the entries of himself and his subordnates after the establish ment had closed its doors for the day. Then he went home to supper deter mined to return and locate the deficit if he didn't get wink of sleep until morn ing.
 Bookkeepes, it must be borne in mind, have highly sensitive organisms, which are susceptible to the smallest atom re- fecting upon their probity or skill. At S:30 the bookkeeper returned and com menced anew his critical calculations. He worked precisely three hours and a half, at the end of which period he sud denly clapped his hand to his forehead and exclaimed:
 "Idiot! Why haven't you looked in the safe for missing sheet? Ten chances to one they have been improperly num- beredr'
 He turned over the pages of the bal ance on his desk, and, sure enough, the usual numerical mark or designation in the upper left hand corner which should follow Il was missing. Page 12 in all likelihood had slipped into some remote corner of the safe.
 The safe was large one, partially re- ceding into the wall and containing all the papers, documents and several day receipts in cash and drafts of the firm.
 The head bookkeeper in his efforts at unearthing the lost page of the cash bal ance was obliged to intrude his entire person into the safe. Fearful lest the ! candle he held should attract attention from the street, showing out as it did | against the black recesSes of the safe, | upon entering it he drew the door slightly | ajar.
 l As he stepped in the tail of his coat caught on an angle of the huge riveted lock, the massive gate swung to as If 1t weighed no more than 8 pound, and the bookkeeper was prisoner. He heard the resonant click-that was \ all. His candle went out.
 The bookkeeper at the outset lost his presence of mind. He fought like a caged animal. He first eIerted almost superhuman strength against the four sides of the iron tomb. Then his body collapsed, and not for an instant losing consciousness he found himself sitting in partially upright position unable to so much as stir a muscle.
 It was almost at the same moment, although hours seemed to have passed, that the drum of his ear, now abnormal ly sensitive, was almost split into frag- ments. A frightful, monotonous clangor rent the interior of the safe.
 The bookkeeper used to observe after ward that single seconds deviation of characteristic thought and he would have gone mad. Stronger minds in a parallel situation would have indeed col lapsed. But a weaker man can never confront the inevitable, but clings more stubbornly to hope. They are only weak individuals who in the act of drowning catch at straws.
 As the bookkeeper felt himself grad ually growing faint for want of air to breathe his reyivtfed hope led him to deliberately crash his fist into the wood work with which the interior of the safe was fitted, in secretaire fashion, one drawer being built above another. This : gave him few additional cubic feet of air.
 As may have been conjectured, the noise which smote the bookkeeper's ear was that of a drill. Although acutely discerned within, the sound was pracH- cslly smothered on the outside of the vault.
 At one end of the drill was a cavity, rsp6ly growing larger, in one of the steel panels. At it's other end was a
 heavy. warty fist, part of the anatomy of Baptiste. the industrious mechanic.