Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1898-03-07
THE RETIRED BURGLAR.
His Curious Experience Tn House witA
 Creakirg Stairs.

ssYou know how the stairs puff up," said tho retired burglar, 'after you sop using em nights? You crowd 'em down close together, solid, treading on 'em all day long, and then when you let up on lem the fibers of the wood lift up again, and the stairs seem to swell You know how they creak sometimes and snap little when you go down 'eln first in the morning and some of the steps yield 8 little under the treadf That's them settling down into place sgain.
 1T love to hear 'em in the morning 1t seems kind of like the stairs waking up and speaking to you as you go along down. But don't like to hear 'em at night And at the time l go about they've had chance to do considerable pufing, and no matter how velvet footed Q man may be he can't lessen his weight very we'll, and so learned ear iy to tread near the wall CT near the banisters going up stairs, and not ou the bow ill the middle. The creak, or the little soft snapping that sounds so pleasant in the morning and that no- body wouldn't notice then, soundk mighty loud at night, when everything is still. If anybody was awake, you know, you could hear it from one end of the house to the other. To be sure, it might not alarm anybody, because there's oth- CT sounds in house at night-sounds that just make themselves, due, sup pose, to changes in temperature. Boards swell and shrink and shift little, and you might hear little snap somewhere In the house any time of night. But ! always hated to hear the stairs creak when was going up 'em, all the same, because always thought that as likely as not it would wake up somebody, and that should find somebody sitting up in bed looking for me when l looked into the door of e room, aud, as mat Ger of fact, that did sometimes happen
 'sI looked one night, after wretched pair of stairs, into half lighted room where l saw man, sitting up in bed, over on the other side of the room, and looking plumb at the door that was standing in. As I told you, was al. ways on the lockout for just this thing, but this man surprised me, for all that He sat there in bed all keyed up, and looking square at me. could see him perfectly plain, and I knew he could see me just as plain, and expected ev- cry minute he'd find his voice and be- gin to holler.
 .tBut instead of that he threw the clothes back off his legs and swung his legs around ont of bed and stood up. He put his right hand out to locate chair &hat stood by the head of the bed, and then he started for the door, hands out a little on each side of him. and feeling out little on both sides and sort of ahead of him as he came along.
 "Humphl Blind. He'd heard the noise and was going to look for it. l might have stood there and slugged him easy as he went by. but didn' t want no rastle with sind man. I just went out and left him shexe sookintEg- "--~New HcSg Sun
 Standard of Righteousness.
 We should measure ourselves by the standard of righteousness set by the Saviour, and the difference between our lives and his is the measure of our shertcoming before God. All fall short of the standard now, but by persever. anoe men shall some day rise to the fuImess of the stature of manhood shown in Jesus Christ.-Dr. E. W. Briekert, Christian Church, Washing. ton, Ind
 The Greatest Books
 There are certain books which no man Iaasv 2 wiser and better man. The greatest books are those which do not need any. thing outside of themselves for their in. terpretation. They are the books whioh live on and on without any reference to the time sn which they were written. They are written at any time for all time.-Dr, John Paul Egbert, Presby. tsrian, St Paul.
 sin's Harvest
 The wild oats sowing may be forgiven or repented of, but many man has been cured by the inevitable harvest o1 ruined health impaired vitality, shat, tered ambitions. Many man sees daily the revelation of his sin in the ghastly reproduction of a son s career Hell is on both sides of the tomb. Sow to sir and reap destruction. Sow to righteous. ness and reap righteousness. Rev. W E. Irwin, Presbyterian, Chicago.
 Gods High Ideals.
 The stone which was cut into form to make part of one of Gods temples spoke with the harmony of beauty of God E high ideals, and the emotions on which many of the disciples of the school ot modern ethics base their theories of mans high nature came 10 them through lines of Christian ancestors or were in.