Phillipsburg Herald

Cool Burglar, Cooler Victim.

In the current Littell's Living Age is copied an article by W. S. Lilly on "The Theory of the Ludicrous," in which article the following story is related:

"I think about the most curious man I ever met," said the retired burglar, "I met in a house in eastern Connecticut, and I shouldn't know him, either, if I should meet him again, unless I should hear him speak. It was so dark where I met him that I never saw him at all.

I had looked around the house downstairs, and actually hadn't seen a thing worth carrying off, and it wasn't a bad-looking house on the outside, either. I got upstairs and groped about a little, and finally turned into a room that was darker than Egypt. I hadn't gone more than three steps in this room when I heard a man say: "Hello, there!"

" 'Hello,' says I.

"'Who are you?' said the man, 'burglar?'

"And I said yes, I did do something in that line occasionally.

"'Miserable business to be in, ain't it?' said the man. His voice came from a bed over in the corner of the room and I knew he hadn't even sat up.

"And I said: 'Well, I duinno; I've got to support my family some way.'

" 'Well, you just wasted a night here,' said the man. 'Didn't you see.anything down stairs worth stealing?'

"And I said no. I hadn't.

" 'Well, there's less upstairs,' says the man and then I heard him turn over and settle down to go to sleep again.

I'd like to have gone over there and kicked him. But I didn't. It was getting late and I thought, all things considered, that I might just as well let him have his sleep out."