The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-08-06

I eally enough, to that very mist which
 should have served them. But l am go
 ing to tell the story with some particular 1 ity. and perhaps some gusto, you will see | why who read.
 The right house stood on high ground near the river with quite a drive Gin at | one gate and out at the other) sweeping | past the steps. Between the two gates ] was half-moon of shrubs. to the left or l the steps a conservatory. and to their | right the walk leading to the tradesmen | entrance and the back premises; here al- l so was ~the pantry window, or whieh i more anon The right house was the resi- denee of an opulent stoekbroker who wore
 heavy watchchan and seemed fair i game There would have been two ob-
 iections to it had I been the stockbroker. 1 The house was one of row, though goodly row. and an army crammer had | established himself next door. There Is ! a type of such institutions in the suburbs, l the youths go about in knickerbockers,
 smoking pipes except on Saturday nights, 1 when they lead each other home from the 1 last train It was none of our business to spy upon these boys, but their manners
 and customs fell within the field of obser- vation. And we did not choose the night upon which the whole row was likely to kept awake.
 The night that We did choose was as iiilSiN dS tNtil lHt NdlltN IS tdpd- ble of making them. Rallies smeared vaseline upon the plated parts of his Beeston Humber before starting, and our dear landlady cosseted us both and pray ed We might see nothing of the nasty burglars, not denying as the reward would be very handy to them that got it, to say nothing of the honor and glory. We had promised her a liberal perquislte in the event of our success but she must not give other cyclists our idea by mention- ing it to a soul. It was about midnight when we cycled through Kingston to Surbition. having turned our machines across Ham Fields, mournful in the mist as those by Acheron, and so over Ted dington bridge.
 l often wonder why the pantry window is the vulnerable point of nine houses out of ten. This house of ours was al- most the tenth, for the window in ques- tion had bars of sorts but not the right sort. The only bars that Rallies allowed to beat him were the kind that are let into the stone outside; those fixed within are merely screwed to the woodwork, and you may unscrew as many as necessary if you take the trouble and have the time. Barred windows are usually devoid of other fasteners worthy the name this one was no exception to that foolish rule. and push with the penknife did it's bus mess. l am giving honsehoders some valuable hints, and perhaps deserving q good mark from the critics. These in any case. are the points that l would see to- were I rich stockholder in a riverside suburb. In giving good advice, however l should not have omitted to say that we had left our machines in the semi-circuar shrubbery in front. or that Rallies had most ingeniously fitted our lamps with dark slides, which enabled us to leave them burning.
 It proved sufficient to unscrew the bars at the bottom only, and then to
 wrench them to either side. Neither of us had grown stout with advancing years. and in a few minutes we had both worm ed through into the sink. and thence to the floor It was not an absolutely noise less process, but once in the pantry we
 were mice, and no longer blind mice,
 There was a gas-bracket but we did not
 meddle with that Rallies went armed these nights with better light than gas; | if it were not immoral, l might recom-
 mend dark lantern which was more or
 less his patent It was that handy inven- tion, the electric torch fitted by Rallies
 with a dark hood to fulfil the functions
 of a slide had held 1t through the bars
 while he undid the screws, and now he i held 1t to the keyhole, in which a key | was turned upon the other side.
 There was a pause for consideration, and in the pause we put on our masks. | It was never known that these Thames Valley robberes were all committed by | miscreants decked in the livery of crime. | but that was because until this night we 1 had never even shown our masks. It
 was a point upon which Rallies had in- sisted on all feasible occasions since his