Omaha daily bee., 1900-01-25
THE RETIRED BURGLAR.
4 Night with n Good Deal of Incident.
I'm Nnt MuGh Gnin.

hut Not Much Gain.
THE strip of light that lay across the
floor of the upstairs hall of this house that
| was in and the hall picket OF light that
stood on the wall on the opposite side Of
the stairway" says the retired burglar in
the New York Sun, came from a room In
which, as | peered across the floor of the
hall, from where l stood on the stairs. |
could hear two men talking. That was IA
good many men for me to handle, awake,
and decidedly wide awake, as these men
evidently were, and it seemed to be clear
that | had lost half a night, or al least.
half a house, for 1 wasn't going to get
anything here upstairs, only what l could
gather up down.
But as | listened to these men | couldn't
help getting interested in them. | couldn't
see them from where | stood then, but |
could hear them perfectly plain and they
were talking earnestly and pretty soon they
began talking angrily; not loudly, but mean
ing business. l didn't see how they could
possibly talk to each other the way they
was doin' without fighting; and presently |
heard two chains slide back, together, and
| knew they was up and l expected every
second to hear 'em biff! bif! plugging away
at each other, and when l didn't hear that
l thought sure I'd hear 'em banging away
1T tuCh ONut VIII guns, u L ulln L utdl
that, either; but in about a second l did
hear the sound of metal against metal, those
fellows were at it with swords!
Then of course l climbs the stairs with
out any hesitation and walks around to
where | could look in at 'em-a company of
men might have walked there then and
they never heard it-and there they was
a-fighting with rapiers and ripping and
slashing and stabbing at each other in a
way to make a peaceable mans blood run
cold, and | knew l ought to stop 'em before
they killed each other. But the question
was, how to do it; they was both Of 'em
pretty solid sort of men and the two of
them, if they'd ALT onto me together, could
have tied me up in a double bowknot and
laid me up against a wall somewhere till
they got ready to carry me off. III got to
do something, though, or they'd kill each
other in about a minute.
II thought first I'd run downstairs and
kick in a window to divert their minds, then
| thought of fallin' downstairs, myself. as
being quicker; and then | thought / might
run and open the front door and holler for
the police. But while l was ciphering these
things over in my mind and trying to de-
eide what TO do, and then thinking at tho
same time of my own safety, and fascinated
all the while by the sight of those men dig
ging away in there so t I couldn't move one
of them made a jab at the other and run
him clean through the body!
THAT shook me loose; before I could turn
and get fairly started the Teller that had
been stabbed and that had sunk Down when
the sword hit him began to get up again,
and the man that had stabbed him drew his
sword out from under the other feller's arm,
saying to him:
Not so bad, Tony! Not so bad!'
and this desperate duel between two men
fighting for their lives and to kill each other
was only practice; and I'd been standing
there looking on like a guy. But I says to
myself, All right, my sons, we now proceed
10 clean out the lower part of the house and
retire; and you can have another round If
you want to = and l did turn and start; but
b. that time the men had got a little through
thei? putting and blowing and the Teller that
had been down, that the other man called
Tony, was laughing. and he says:
My, but that's not work, hey?' and the
other Teller says:
Tony, that worth a bottle Of beer
"Well, now, l says to myself, If you've
got an ice chest right where you are, all
right, but if you haven't I'm likely to be
out And l was out; the beer was down
stairs. The minute they turned for the door
/ turned for the cellar, and | heard 'em in
the dining room overhead, hoping, OF course,
all the time; but they were long wlnded
chaps; they got out something to eat and
they set to eat there and ct and drinked and
chinned until | could see the first glimmer
of the morning coming through the cellar
window that I'd come in at, and it was time
for me to go; they'd done mo out of the
lower half now, as well as the upper, the
whole business, in fact, and thought as
went down the road that besides losing a
night, I'd kind o. made a fool of myself, to
boot