A Gentleman of Leisure

Jimmy leaned back in his chair and spoke calmly, but with decision.

“Any man of ordinary intelligence,” he said, “could break into a house.”

Mifflin jumped up and began to gesticulate. This was heresy.

“My dear old son, what absolute⁠—”

“I could,” said Jimmy, lighting a cigarette.

There was a roar of laughter and approval. For the past few weeks, during the rehearsals of Love, the Cracksman, Arthur Mifflin had disturbed the peace at the Strollers’ with his theories on the art of burglary. This was his first really big part, and he had soaked himself in it. He had read up the literature of burglary. He had talked with detectives. He had expounded his views nightly to his brother Strollers, preaching the delicacy and difficulty of cracking a crib till his audience had rebelled. It charmed the Strollers to find Jimmy, obviously of his own initiative, and not to be suspected of having been suborned to the task by themselves, treading with a firm foot on the expert’s favourite corn within five minutes of their meeting.

“You!” said Arthur Mifflin, with scorn.

“Me⁠—or, rather, I!”

“You! Why, you couldn’t break into an egg unless it was a poached one.”

“What’ll you bet?” said Jimmy.

The Strollers began to sit up and take notice. The magic word “bet,” when uttered in that room, had rarely failed to add a zest to life. They looked expectantly to Arthur Mifflin.

How long the light had been darting about the room like a very-much-enlarged firefly Jimmy did not know. It seemed to him like hours, for it had woven itself into an incoherent waking dream of his; and for a moment, as the mists of sleep passed away from his brain, he fancied that he was dreaming still. Then sleep left him, and he realised that the light, which was now moving slowly across the bookcase, was a real light.

That the man behind it could not have been there long was plain, or he would have seen the chair and its occupant. He seemed to be taking the room step by step. As Jimmy sat up noiselessly, and gripped the arms of the chair in readiness for a spring, the light passed from the bookcase to the table. Another foot or so to the left, and it would have fallen on Jimmy.

On it came. From the position of the ray Jimmy could see that the burglar was approaching on his side of the table. Though, until that day, he had not been in the room for two months, its geography was clearly stamped on his mind’s eye. He knew almost to a foot where his visitor was standing. Consequently when, rising swiftly from the chair he made a football dive into the darkness, it was no speculative dive.

He was just moving to the door, when from some distant part of the house came the bark of a dog. Another joined in. The solo became a duet. The air was filled with their clamour.

“Gee!” cried Spike.

The remark seemed more or less to sum up the situation.

“ ’Tis sweet,” says Byron, “to hear the watchdog’s honest bark.” Jimmy and Spike found two watchdogs’ honest barks cloying. Spike intimated this by making a feverish dash for the open window. Unfortunately for the success of this manoeuvre, the floor of the room was covered, not with a carpet, but with tastefully scattered rugs, and underneath these rugs it was very highly polished. Spike, treading on one of these islands, was instantly undone. No power of will or muscle can save a man in such a case. Spike skidded. His feet flew from under him. There was a momentary flash of red hair, as of a passing meteor. The next moment he had fallen on his back with a thud which shook the house, and probably the rest of Manhattan Island as well. Even in that crisis the thought flashed across Jimmy’s mind that this was not Spike’s lucky night.

Upstairs the efforts of the canine choir had begun to resemble the “A che la morte” duet in Il Trovatore. Particularly good work was being done by the baritone dog.

Spike sat up, groaning. Equipped though he was by nature with a skull of the purest and most solid ivory, the fall had disconcerted him.

“Listen, boss! It’s dis way. Gee, it beat de band. When it’s all dark, ’cos of de storm comin’ on, I’m in de dressin’ room chasin’ around for de jool-box, and just as I gets a line on it⁠—gee!⁠—I hears a footstep coming down de passage, very soft, straight for de door. Was I to de bad? Dat’s right. I says to meself, ‘Here’s one of de sleut guys what’s bin and got wise to me, an’ he’s comin’ in to put de grip on me,’ so I gets up quick, an’ I hides behind a coitain. Dere’s a coitain at de side of de room. Dere’s dude suits an t’ings hangin’ behind it. I chases meself in dere, and stands waitin’ for de sleut to come in, ’cos den, you see, I’m goin’ to try an’ get busy before he can see who I am⁠—it’s pretty dark ’cos of de storm⁠—an’ jolt him one on de point of de jaw, an’ den, while he’s down an’ out, chase meself fer de soivants’ hall.”

“Yes?” said Jimmy.

“Well, dis guy, he gets to de door and opens it, and I’m just gettin’ ready for one sudden boist of speed when dere jumps out from de room on de odder side de passage⁠—you know de room⁠—anodder guy, an’ gets de rapid strangleholt on de foist mug. Say, wouldn’t dat make youse glad you hadn’t gone to de circus?