Tommy's Burglar

O Henry

AT TEN o'clock P. M. Felicia, the maid, left by the basement door with the policeman to

get a raspberry phosphate around the corner. She detested the police- man and objected

earnestly to the arrangement. She pointed out, not unreasonably, that she might have been

allowed to fall asleep over one of St. George Rathbone's novels on the third floor, but she

was overruled. Rasp- berries and cops were not created for nothing.

The burglar got into the house without much difficulty; because we must have action and

not too much descrip- tion in a 2,000-word story.

In the dining room he opened the slide of his dark lantern. With a brace and centrebit he

suppose I have a three- days' growth of bristly bread on my face for, and a cap with flaps?

Give me the oil, quick, and let me grease the bit, so I won't wake up your mamma, who is

lying down with a headache, and left you in charge of Felicia. who has been faithless to her

trust."

"Oh, dear," said Tommy, with a sigh. "I thought you would be more up-to-date. This oil is

for the salad when I bring lunch from the pantry for you. And mamma and papa have gone

to the Metropolitan to hear De Reszke. But that isn't my fault. It only shows how long the

story has been knocking around among the editors. If the author had been wise he'd have

changed it to Caruso in the proofs."

"Be quiet," hissed the burglar, under his breath. "If you raise an alarm I'll wring your neck

and get pinched on the sidewalk."

"I see," said the burglar, "that you're on to your job. Go on with the performance."

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"I see what you're driving at," said the burglar, with a dark frown. "It's the same old story.

Your innocence and childish insouciance is going to lead me back into an honest life. Every

time I crack a crib where there's a kid around, it happens."

"Would you mind gazing with wolfish eyes at the plate of cold beef that the butler has left

on the dining table?" said Tommy. "I'm afraid it's growing late."

The burglar accommodated.

"Poor man," said Tommy. "You must be hungry. If you will please stand in a listless

attitude I will get you something to eat."

The boy brought a roast chicken, a jar of marmalade and a bottle of wine from the pantry.

The burglar seized a knife and fork sullenly.

"I ought to have explained," said Tommy. "He didn't buy the tickets." The burglar sat again

and toyed with the wishbone.

"Why do you burgle houses?" asked the boy, wonderingly.

"Because," replied the burglar, with a sudden flow of tears. "God bless my little brown-

baired boy Bessie at home."

"Ah," said Tommy, wrinkling his nose, "you got that answer in the wrong place. You want

to tell your hard- luck story before you pull out the child stop."

"Oh, yes," said the burglar, "I forgot. Well, once I lived in Milwaukee, and -- "

"Take the silver," said Tommy, rising from his chair.

"Hold on," said the burglar. "But I moved away." I could find no other employment. For a

"After you finish your lunch," said Tommy, "and experience the usual change Of heart, how

shall we wind up the story?"

night, and your father gets in from 'Parsifal' at 10.30. I am thoroughly repentant because you

have made me think of my own little boy Bessie, and -- "

"Say," said Tommy, "haven't you got that wrong?"

"Not on your coloured crayon drawings by B. Cory Kilvert," said the burglar. "It's always a

Bessie that I have at home, artlessly prattling to the pale-checked burglar's bride. As I was

sandwiches that you have wrapped up for me. Upon recognizing me as an old Harvard

classmate he starts back in -- "

"Well," said Tommy, wonderingly, "that's, the first time I ever knew a burglar to give a

this is put on the stage that college touch is about the only thing that will make it go."

Tommy looked his admiration.

"You're on, all right," he said.

"And there's another mistalze you've made," said the burglar. "You should have gone some

time ago and brought me the $9 gold piece your mother gave you on your birthday to take

to Bessie."

"But she didn't give it to me to take to Bessie," said Tommy, pouting.

"Come, come!" said the burglar, sternly. "It's not nice of you to take advantage because the

story contains an ambiguous sentence. You know what I mean. It's mighty little I get out of

these fictional jobs, anyhow. I lose all the loot, and I have to reform every time; and all the

swag I'm allowed is the blamed little fol-de-rols and luck-pieces that you kids hand over.

Why, in one story, all I got was a kiss from a little girl who came in on me when I was

"Oh, no, you haven't," said Tommy, wrapping his arms around his knees. "Because if you

taking the bread out of a poor man's mouth, what you'd like to be doing is hiding under the

bed and screeching at the top of your voice."

"You're right, old man," said Tommy, heartily. "I wonder what they make us do it for? I

my age to butt in when a full-grown burglar is at work and offer him a red sled and a pair of

skates not to awaken his sick mother. And look how they make the burglars act! You'd

think editors would know -- but what's the use?"

The burglar wiped his hands on the tablecloth and arose with a yawn.

"Well, let's get through with it," he said. "God bless you, my little boy! you have saved a

give her her orders. I shall never burglarize another house -- at least not until the June

magazines are out. It'll be your little sister's turn then to run in on me while I am abstracting

the U. S. 4 per cent. from the tea urn and buy me off with her coral necklace and a falsetto

us."

I guess I'll always be broke."

"I'm sorry," said Tommy, sympathetically. "But I can't help myself any more than you can.

must be foiled by a kid like me, or- by a young lady heroine, or at the last moment by his

You have got the worst end of it in any kind of a story."

"Well, I suppose I must be clearing out now," said the burglar, taking up his lantern and

bracebit.

mother," said Tommy, calmly.

"But confound it," exclaimed the burglar, in an annoyed tone, "they don't want it. I've got

five cases of Chateau de Beychsvelle at home that was bottled in 1853. That claret of yours

is corked. And you couldn't get either of them to look at a chicken unless it was stewed in

"Yes, but you must take them," said Tommy, loading his arms with the bundles.

Tommy led the way through the hall toward the front door. Suddenly the burglar stopped

and called to him softly: "Ain't there a cop out there in front somewhere sparking the girl?"

"I'm afraid he'll catch me," said the burglar. "You mustn't forget that this is fiction."

"Great head!" said Tommy, turning. "Come out by the back door."

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