The conversation drifted smoothly and pleasantly along from weather to crops, from crops to literature, from literature to scandal, from scandal to religion. Then it took a random jump and landed on the subject of burglar alarms. Now for the first time Mr. McWilliams showed feeling. Whenever I perceive this sign on this man's dial, I comprehend it, lapse into silence and give him opportunity to unload his heart. He said but with ill-controlled emotion.

“I will not give one single cent for a burglar alarm, Mr. Twain—not a single cent—and I will tell you why. When we were finishing our house, we found we had a little cash left over on account of the plumber not knowing it. I was for enlarging the hearth with it because I was always unaccountably down on the hearth somehow. However, Mrs. McWilliams said, "No, let's have a burglar alarm." I agreed to this compromise. I will explain that whenever I want a thing, and Mrs. McWilliams wants another thing, and we decide upon the thing that Mrs. McWilliams wants—as we always do—she calls that a compromise. The man came up from New York and put in the alarm and charged three hundred and twenty-five dollars for it. He said we could sleep without uneasiness now. So we did for awhile—say a month. Then one night we smelled smoke, and I was advised to get up and see what the matter was. I lit a candle and started toward the stairs. I met a burglar coming out of a room with a basket of our tin utensils which he had mistaken for solid silver in the dark. He was smoking a pipe. I said, 'My friend, we do not allow smoking in this room.' He said he was a stranger and could not be expected to know the rules of the house. I said he had been in many houses just as good as this one, and it had never been objected to before. He added that as far as his experience went, such rules had never been considered to apply to burglars, anyway.

“I said, 'Smoke along, then if it is the custom. However, waiving all that, what business have you to be entering this house in this furtive and clandestine way, without ringing the burglar alarm?'

“He looked confused and ashamed and said with embarrassment, 'I beg a thousand pardons. I did not know you had a burglar alarm else I would have rung it. I beg you will not mention it where my parents may hear of it, for they are old and feeble. Such a seemingly cruel breach of the holy conventionalities of our Christian civilization might all too rudely separate the frail bridge. May I trouble you for a match?'

“I said, 'Your sentiments do you honor, but if you will allow me to say it, the metaphor is not your best hold. To return to business, how did you get in here?'

“'Through a second-story window.'

“It was even so. I redeemed the utensils at the pawnbroker's rates, less cost of advertising, bade the burglar goodnight, closed the window after him, and retired to headquarters to report. Next morning, we sent for the burglar-alarm man, and he came up and explained that the reason the alarm did not 'go off' was that no part of the house but the first floor was attached to the alarm. This was simply idiotic because one might as well have no armor on at all in battle as to have it only on his legs. The expert now put the whole second story on the alarm, charged three hundred dollars for it, and went his way. By and by, one night, I found a burglar in the third story about to start down a ladder with a lot of miscellaneous property. My first impulse was to crack his head with a billiard cue, but my second was to refrain from this attention because he was between me and the cue rack. The second impulse was plainly the soundest, so I refrained and proceeded to compromise. I redeemed the property at former rates, after deducting ten per cent for use of the ladder. It was my ladder. The next day we sent down for the expert once more and had the third story attached to the alarm for three hundred dollars.

“By this time the burglar alarm had grown to difficult dimensions. It had forty-seven tags on it, marked with the names of the various rooms and chimneys, and it occupied the space of an ordinary wardrobe. The gong was the size of a wash-bowl and was placed above the head of our bed. There was a wire from the house to the coachman's quarters in the stable and a noble gong alongside his pillow.

After spending years of trying to make sure their house is secure, Mr. McWilliams would receive a bill like the one below from an expert itemizing the materials used in securing the house.

Wire ............................$2.15
Nipple........................... .75
Two hours of labor ................ 1.50
Wax.............................. .47
Tape............................. .34
Screws........................... .15
Recharging battery .............. .98
Three hours' labor .............. 2.25
String........................... .02
Lard ............................ .66
Pond's Extract .................. 1.25
Springs at 50.................... 2.00
Railroad fares................... 7.25

Note

Only spelling mistakes, if any, in the above passage have been corrected. No other corrections, including grammatical, have been made so that the originality of the passage is maintained.