The Wilmington daily Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1890-1902, 1899-01-31
A RETIRED E. BURGLAR.
HE TELLS OF A CURIOUS INCIDENT
IN HIS CAREER.

A Nights Work That Involved Dis
agreeable Surprise, a Cool Heade,
Man and q Safe That Had to u
Opened Before Morning..
I'm the course Of my time, 4" said the re
tired burglar, II have opened consider
able number of iron boxes of one sort an,
another, but never one under more pc
culiar circumstances than this one, in
house in a small town in this state. Thi
safe stood in the dining room against tn
wall on one side. My light fell on it whel
opened the door of the room to look in
TWAS a big, old fashioned safe, more like
| ly here to contain documents and mort
| cages and one thing and another like tha
| than money. But safe is always pleas
ant thing to look at. 1t makes you think
of money anyway. And so | was glad tt
see this safe, and, of course, hoped I'd
find lot of stuff in it too. Then start
ed to swing my lamp around to take q
! glance at the rest Of the room before walk
| ing in, but l hadn' t more begun to move
it before brought into the light pair Of
shoes with the heels on the floor and the
soles up at an angle of about 40 degrees
toes toward the safe. There were feet in
those shoes, of course, and the legs went
up from the other side ut an angle Of Al
,, see was man sitting there in a chair in
front of the safe asleep.
well, now, you know, that was unex,
pected, and while man in my business
must expect unexpected things and he
ready for EN- and not be surprised or star,
tied this was really SO very unusual that
l will admit was Just little bit startled
by it, and my hand must have shaken a
little, and while under most circum.
stances that wouldn't have made the
slightest difference in the world here it
made all the difference, for the hand that
shook was the one holding the lamp,
which was at that moment close to the
janlb of the door l knocked the lamp
against it--just IA little bit of tick, but
enough to wake up the sleeper. could
SEC his feet draw up toward the chair
"Then wanted to get out myself, and
started along the hall was in toward
the cellar door I'd oome in at, but hadn't
taken two steps before I heard man say:
Hold on there-wait! Come back
THiu WSiu peSh. ~ w 10 o COlllIldilu,
but 1t was an invitation, too, and was
ready to meet it or to chance 1t, and
went back to the dining room and looked
in and saw man lighting the gas; he'd
been having for light before kerosene
lamp that saw now standing on the ta-
bic with the oil burned out The man
turned and says to me:
"'Come in
He wasn't quite so tall as was, but
he was pretty solid sort of citizen, who
could have held his own with me in a
square rough and tumble easy, and he was
II man who was accustomed to bossing
things and having folks do what he said.
couldn't tell for the life Of me what he
was, what his business was, but guess
he was Just simply the richest man in the
town and spent his time looking after his
property. And when I'd come in he says:
WHAT'S your business, my friend?
"And said was travelling black
smith.
'''H'mn he says. You do most of your
work nights?'
And I said yes, I did do more or less
night work
land imagine you've got handy
kit of tools right in that bag there now,'
he says, pointing to my bag, that had set
down alongside Of the chair 1 was sitting
in.
And said yes, had tools there for
any ordinary work.
"'You see that safe?' the man says,
pointing toward the safe he d been sitting
in front of when first looked in, and I
looked at it and saw the big, old fashioned
safe, looking very imposing and strong,
but safe that a man that knew how could
cut into about as easy as he could cheese,
and said yes, did
well, says the man, Il want to get
into that SAFE There's some papers in
there that I've got to have in court tomor-
row morning, or this morning rather, at
So-and so at 10 O'Clock. And I've broken
the key, and I've been trying here for half !
the night to break the safe open. Do you
suppose you could open it''
'Wcll, had to kind of cough to conceal
my emotion, because could have opened
the old box, you know, in ten minutes,
but l said yes, could open 1t, thought.
Well, now, says the man, you pitch
in and open it, and he sat down in a chair
there near the safe and got ready to sec me
work. And put my bag up on the table
and got out my tools and went at it, with
the owner looking on and greatly interest
cd. "In about three quarters of an hour
had the door of the safe off and laid OH its
back on the floor
You certainly arc a handy man with
tools, ch?' says the man, and then he asked
me to look through the safe and see that
there was no money in it, which was
quite right. There wasn't any. You'd
have got nothing says the man. But
you've saved me a lot of bother and trou-
BILE, he says, getting those papers for mo
in time, and want to pay you for it.
How much do you think I ought to give
your
And I said I'd leave that to him.
How much do you make q dayp he
nays.
And I told him my earnings varied;
hat sometimes made nothing and some
lines made good deal, but thought I
lidn't average more than $50 day. He
'cemed to have his own ideas about that,
90. but he handed mo over $50 note and
aid the work was worth 1t to him.
And then he escorted me to the door.
And he didn't ask me not to come back
Tor threaten nor warn nor anything. He
Knew that my knowledge Of his habits
bout money insured him from any fur
her visits from me, as far as that was
oncerned, and he wasted no words over
+. He just let me out the door and didn't
ven say good night.
Curious things happen i'll my busincss'
les, they do, sure; no doubt about it. A
nan may go for days and weeks and moth
ng whatever happen; everybody sound
sleep and you just walk in and walk out,
nd that's all there is to 1t, but when
nything does happen it's moren likely :
0 be something out Of the usual course. y
New York Sun.