Warren sheaf., 1896-12-17

of the safe. His wife met him, beam-
ing.
"Oh, dear" she cried, 'the safes here,
and it's perfectly grand. We certainly
must get those 500 curtains now, if we
are going TO live up to the SAFE
! But this was only passing cloud.
He felt thrill of joyful pride when he
saw the safe and heard all about it from
his wife. 1t reached his house in tn.
afternoon while he was at business, and
the duty of receiving it fell upon his
wife alone and almost proved too much
for her. That was largely because the
safe seemed so huge and so dignifed
as it sat in majesty upon the truck that
brought it.
"That thing doesn't come into my
house!" she exclaimed, Indignantly,
when the servant girl rushed up into her
room with the news that a procession
had stopped in front of the house, and
showed it to her from the window.
| Its big enough for pawn shop! Let
him leave it in the front yard if he wants
| to.
Undoubtedly the escort made the safe
seem more formidable than it was in
reality. The escort included two big,
fat, jolly Percherons, truck with
Windlass, a complete outfit of ropes and
tackle and skids and derricks, two red
signs with the warning, ''Danger!" on
them in big letters, a stout man who
bossed the job, and two assistants in
| check jumpers who jollied the servants.
1t caused commotion in the neighbor-
hood and collected crowd in front of
the house. Altogether it was enough
! to arouse the ire of any housewife. But
there may be some affinity between
| handling safes and handling women,
for the man who was bossing the job
| seemed to have as little difficulty. in
moving the one as in cajoling the other.
He told her what nice safe it was and
calmed her apprehensions by assur-
ing her that it would not really be nec-
essary to take the front wall of the
house down in order to get the safe in.
Ely the time the assistant had rugged up
derrick and arranged their skids and
their tackle she was able to contem-
plate the safe with more kindly feelings.
Then the men got the thing into the
house after nearly taking the front door
off it's hinges, denting the hat rack and
smashing the globe of the hall lamp.
This damage was SO much less than the
devastation she had expected that she
felt positive gratitude to the safe when
it was in position at last.
II don't know how we have got along
without it, she remarked.
The safe certainly had it's good points
outwardly, whatever it's moral failings
as demonstrated by subsequent events.
twas big, hand-painted in white, picked
out with fne gold lines, and had it's
proprietor's name upon it in gold let
ters. It was fitted with combination
lock, over which you could spend
quarter of an hour proftably whenever
you wanted to open the door. In order
to prevent mistakes, the proprietor ex-
planned the combination to his wife and
his servant, and showed them how to
work it. AS a further precaution, he
wrote it out in large figures and posted
the paper in the most conspicuous place
he could think of. Then he considered
that both he and his valuables were Sc.
cure.
The safe set out at once to make it's
presence felt. A spry young man was
announced by the maid servant.
'Pm from the burglar alarm com
pany," he said. Better let us put
burglar alarm on that safe of yours.
When you set out to make property Sc
cure, better spend little more money
and be perfectly sure of it,
"Bah!" returned the owner. ''It's a
safe, isn't it?''
"Yes," replied the burglar alarm man,
land so you don't want to be penny
wise and pound foolish!"
"And it's good safe, too, isn't it?"
continued the man.
''That's just it," replied the burglar
alarm man, earnestly. '"The better the
safe the more it interests good bur-
glar, and the harder he will try to blow
it open with nitroglycerin.
BAH" said the owner again, show
ing the burglar alarm agent out.
Next there came district messenger
boy.
.'The boss wants to know" he said,
"will you nave your house watched by
special policeman"
s'What for?" demanded the proprie-
tor of the safe.
ITO drive away the tramps," said the
boy. "Tramps will grab the safe the
first thing"
"Go way!" said the owner, scornfully.
A little while later the maid servant
announced that the policeman would
like to see the gentleman. The gentle
man told her to bring him up.