The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-12-16

thought his Lordship, ''Shouldn't won der if those guys were net rich" The front rooms of this house were evil dently not used but bright lights streamed from two long windows at the side, painting their duplicates In cold outlines on the lawn. His Lord ship wondered idly how that room looked on the inside and SO passed around to the side of the house, It was a dining room and three people sat at supper--an elderly lady. tall. erect and severe of face and manner, another elderly lady who seemed to be feeble echo of the other and a child whose back was toward the windows The room and the group lacked all the qualities that the other room and the other group possessed. The room was. cold, the people dull and com mon place, so thought His Lordship outside the window. It was partly be- cause he was curious 10 see what the tall severe lady would say, and partly because he was really hungry that His Lordship went back to the front door, rang the bell and asked for his supper. He hadn't done that since oh. how many years.-he was a little chap running about the Frisco streets but it was just as well to avoid public places even in this small town, | his funds were low and the Arizona ranch he had his minds eye On, was some thousands of miles away.
 1 Of course it was Virginia's Aunt Emmeline who answered the bell--the last person fin the world to give food to worthless tramps She spoke her mind freely on the subject and slam med the door in His Lordship's face. She didn't see the glint that came Into His Lordship's eye, nor the smile that made his young mouth hard and cynical-she went back to her unfin- ished supper not less righteous than that Pharisee who went up daily into the temple to thank the Lord that he was not as other men. It couldn't have been Christmas Eve to her, either. The glint in His Lordship's eye as he walked back down the street was the kind that demanded the eye for eye and the tooth for the tooth. Vir- ginia's Aunt Emmehne might have committed every crime forbidden by the Decalogue and still have been re- spected by His Lordship but alarmed sting giness was a thing he couldn't overlook. A desire to get even-to pay her back-burned like flame in his breast.
 The desire to get even. the craving for adventure, the need of money these three things took him back to the big house under the elms at II o'clock The street was deserted. A train for the west pulled out at o'clock. He meant to help himself to the old lady's money and ~th n- Westward ho!
 His lordship had never broken into a house beforev-but why shouldna he now? If she had given him his sup per, then it would have been differ ent. But sine had curtly turned him away, and there was nothing indefens- ible to him in his breaking into her house at midnight and helping him self to needed cash. TheN little waif that had grown up into His Lordshipp had helped himself to the contents of many a pocketbook out there i'll the San Francisco streets. The little waif grown up into His Lordship. had left off such things as unDecoming in man. But. tonight Ills Lordship had become the little waif again. He might have stood the Iurkide about in the dark, the cold and the hunger-but looking into that first bright room had been his undoing. He nolselessly forced open the dining room window and got into Virglnia's Aunt EnIme. lines house.
 A man who has made his way along trails, sometimes by night, In the Sierras and the Rockies might give lession in caution to a practiced house.