The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1895-08-28
THE RETIRED BURGLAR.
A Few Comfortable Moments In the
House of q Connecticut Yankee.


New York Sun.
"One hot night, !" said the retired burg
lar, 81 went into house In a town in
Connecticut. IL il was hot outside don Z
know what you would call IL inside. All
the windows in the lower part Of the
house were shut tight, and the house
down stairs was just sitting. The per-
spiration Just dropped of my chin into the
sideboard drawers when / was bending
over 'em; and TO tell the truth was glad
there wasn't any more In 'em to keep me
down. When had got the last spoon into
my bag swabbed my face of with my
handkerchief and started up stairs.
Goodness! What a relief II was to get
up where there were some windows open
and little life in the air! And the very
first room / turned into upstairs, the
principal chamber, had something better
than that, II had a fine, cool, steady
breeze from somewhere that was most re-
freshing. i went into this room carefully,
and before I'd gone far heard a gentle
little steady whir and turned my light
In that direction and saw standing on
table simple, homemade machine that
had fan, revolving fan, that was some
thing like propeller wheel with straight
blades, or more like paddle wheel with
three or four blades, set on the end OF
shaft and turning away steady and making
nice cool little breeze ALT Trough the
room. Welll There was chair settin'
near the table, looked as though some
body might have been sittin' there near
the fan reading before they went to bed
and just set my bag down on the floor
and sat down in the chair.and let that fan
blow me cool
'Well, I'D been sittin' there very COM
Portable for maybe ten minutes when the
fan began TO go slower, and very soon il
stopped altogether; and i got up to see
what was the matter. The matter was
ha ha1
TWAS O'Clock in the morning, and the
owner hadn't made IL run all night
though he.might have done IL easy; he
had set II TO run through the earliest
and hottest part of the night. II was a
very simple but very ingenious contriv-
ance. There was a framework to begin
with, and resting in this, on a journal
at each end, was wooden cylinder, may
he foot long and six inches in diameter.
There was cogged wheel on one end OF
this cylinder, the cogs turning in the
cogs OF another much smaller wheel near
the end OF smaller cylinder or shaft
that rested in the frame on Journals like
the big cylinder, and parallel with it.
On the end of the little shaft was the fan.
The fan was set in motion and kept 20
ing by weight hanging from the big
shaft This weight was attached 10 a
cord which was wound around the cylin-
der, as a well rope winds around barrel
to raise the bucket, and II there was no
ratchet or catch on the cylinder, IL you
should let go the crank the bucket would
drop and the crank only fly round.
"On this fan the weight was made to
fall very slowly, and so to keep the fan
In motion long time, by means of a sort
of friction brake made of a stout, ad-
Unstable spring, one end of which was
attached to the frame of the contrivance,
while the other rested on the big cylin-
der and made IL go slow. AS j said be-
fore, the fan had stopped going, now
simply because il had run down. One
OF the journals of the big cylinder was
carried out beyond the frame with
square end 10 set a wrench on. / turned
my light on the table again and found, as
j expected,a wrench. tried the wrench
but II wound very hard with, the brake
on, and so threw that off while wind
ing. I'D got the fan about three-quarters
wound up, and was reaching over to get
ready TO set the brake again and let her
buzz once more when all of sudden the
wrench slipped off, the machine whizzed
round, and down went the weight, kerr
bang!
81 heard n rustlin' over In the bed and
turned my light over that way and saw
slttln' up I'm the bed big gaunt grizzly
looking man, the inventor OF the fan, no
doubt, who was calmly pulling the boil
ster over with one hand and reaching un-
der II with the other. didn't know
what sort OF death-dealin' implement a
man OF that sort might pull out, and SO
] thought that mebbe as good thing as
j could do now woulds be TO see III n
hadn't grown cooler outside''