The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-07-13
White Cat
Copyright. 1910. by BObbs.
 Merritt Go.

"You have less sense than I thought '' she snapped. T am going to leave them where they are and watch. Who ever took the ten will be back for more, mark my words"
 'I don't advise it. said decidedly.
 'Stuff and nonsense!' the old lady said, with spirit.
 "Then-what do you want me to do?' !, asked Have Bella arrested and her trunk searched?"
 ''Her trunkr' she said scornfully. q turned it inside out this morning. I want you to stay here for three or four
 flights. When catch the thief want
 my lawyers right by"
 It ended by my consenting, of course. Miss Letitia was seldom refused. Lit
 tie Miss Jane lighted me to the door of the guest room. Her thin gray curls
 bobbed as she examined the water
 pitcher, saw to the towels and felt the bed linen for dampness. At the door she turned around timidly..
 "Has-anything happened to disturb my sister," she asked. "She-has been almost irritable all day"
 ''She is worried about her colored orphans" evaded. "She does not ap- prove of fireworks for them on the Fourth of July.'
 I put out the light and sat down near the window, with my cigar and my thoughts. I had finished my sec ond cigar. There was sound of fun- bling at one of the shutters below.
 With Miss Letitia's story of the pearls fresh in my mind I felt at once that
 the thief. finding his ten a prize, had come back for more.
 I found on the mantel heavy brass candlestick, and with it in my hand stepped into the gloom of the hallway and felt my way to the stairs. had kicked off my shoes, fact regretted later. went into the library, which was beneath n10 room, but the sounds at the window had ceased. I thought I heard steps on the walk going to.
 ward the front of the house. I wheel ed quickly and started for the door when something struck me terrific blow on the nose. I reeled back and sat down, dizzy and shocked. It was only when no second blow followed the first that realized what had occurred. With my two hands out before me in the blackness had groped, one hand on either side of the open door, which, of course, had struck violently with my nose. My candlestick had rolled under the table, and after crawling around on my hands and knees I found it. For all her boasted watchfulness
 Miss Letitia must have been asleep. I got back into the dining room. Some one was fumbling at the shutters there, and as I looked they swung open. It was so dark outside with the trees and the distance from. the street that only the creaking of the shutter
 told it had opened. I stood in the mid
 dle of the room, with one hand firmly
 clutching my cand1estick.
 But the window refused to move. The burglar seemed to have no proper tools. He got something under the
 sash, but it snapped, and through the
 heavy plate glass I could hear him swearing. Then he abruptly left the
 window and made for the front of the house.
 I blundered in the same direction, my unshod feet striking on projecting furniture and causing me agonies,
 even through my excitement When I
 reached the front door, however, I
 was amazed to find it unlocked, and
 standing open perhaps an inch. I stopped uncertainty. I was in a pc
 culiar position. Not even the most ar
 dent admirers of antique brass candle sticks indorse them as weapons of of fense or defense. But, there seeming to be nothing else to do, opened the door quietly and stepped out into the l darkness.
 The next instant was flung heavily | to the porch floor. am not small man by any means, but under the fury of that onslaught was a child. It
 was a porch chair, think, that knock ed noe senseless. know I folded up like jackknife, and that was all I did know for a few minutes. When I came to was lying where I had fallen, and candle was burning beside me on the porch floor. It took me minute to remember, and another minute to realize that I was looking into the barrel of a revolver. It oc-
 cured to me that had never seen a
 more villainous face than that of the
 man who held it--which shows my | state of mind-and that my position | was the reverse of comfortable. |