Stockton Herald, South Durham and Cleveland Advertiser. — 1887-10-15 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

MIDNIGHT PIC-NIC  " You were talking just now of your feasts with the Tartars of Central Asia," says my friend, Jack Hawkins, as we pace the afterdeck of the Brazilian steamer, watching the huge, dark-green headland of Cape Frio melt into the western sky. " Well, they must have been queer sport, and no mistake; but I, without going out of England, have had a picnic quite as queer as any of those, and, I think, when you hear the story you'll say so too.  "You've seen my wife, I think? Well, then, you've seen a woman of &thousand. Of course, every man's bound to stand up for his own relations; but if she were anybody else's wife instead of mine, I'd say none the less that she's the pluckiest little woman I ever met. When we were first married I had (more shame for me no great opinion of her nerve, although I might have known that a girl who had been in India when the mutiny was at its height could scarcely ho wanting in that way. Many's the time I've chaffed her about it, and told her that a lady might face the risk of being murdered, and yet go into hysterics at sight of a mouse running across the floor. But I had reason to change my mind before long, as you shall hear. "We were living then just out of London, in one of these queer little cottages which seem to spring up like mushrooms all around the suburbs' and never to have the earns people in them more than three months at a time. It was rather a lonely place, with only one policernon anywhere near it, and my friends used to warn me that I stood a good chance of being robbed; but, as in those days I had scarcely anything to be robbed of, I didn't trouble myself much about that. "Well, one dark night in the early spring I awoke with a start and a vague feeling of something wrong. My first discovery was that Helen was missing; my second, that a voice very like hers was calling out for me ; my third, when I burst into the next room like a whirlwind, was Helen herself, in a long, grey wrapper, with one foot against the window-sill, holding on like grim death to something that projected through the gap where a pane of glass had been cut out—and that something was neither more nor less than the arm of a man  '1 understood the whole thing at a glance. Quick as lightning, I threw up the other window, sprang out upon the balcony, and seized the fellow from behind. He kicked and struggled like a wild cat, but you know I've a pretty good grip of my own,and I soon had him down, while Helen sang out for help with all her might, on the chance of our solitary policeman being within hearing. "By special good Wok he was; and presently, by a stray gleam of moonlight, we saw him come spanking round the corner as if he were running for a prize-cup. In two minutes more our unbidden guest was securely handcuffed and the policeman was standing looking at him with quite a fatherly air, like some jolly old grandpapa watching a youngster get into his first pair of trousers. "And now, the excitement being over, Helen began to give way at last, as well she , might. So I ran out to fetch my brandy fiask, and gave her a glassful to keep her up; and then it struck me that while I was about it I might just as well take one myself." " Truat you kit' that, Master Jaok I" interrupted I. "If we W3to all like you, there . would be no roam ma the world for anyone but bar-tenders."