d
ceased. I thought I heard steps on the walk, going toward the front of
the house. I wheeled quickly and started for the door, when something
struck me a terrific blow on the nose. I reeled back and sat down, dizzy
and shocked. It was only when no second blow followed the first that I
realized what had occurred.

With my two hands out before me in the blackness, I had groped, one hand
on either side of the open door, which of course I had struck violently
with my nose. Afterward I found it had bled considerably, and my collar
and tie must have added to my ghastly appearance.

My candlestick had rolled under the table, and after crawling around on
my hands and knees, I found it. I had lost, I suppose, three or four
minutes, and I was raging at my awkwardness and stupidity. No one,
however, seemed to have heard the noise. For all her boasted
watchfulness, Miss Letitia must have been asleep. I got back into the
hall and from there to the dining-room. Some one was fumbling at the
shutters there, and as I looked they swung open. It was so dark outside,
with the trees and the distance from the street, that only the creaking
of the shutter told it had opened. I stood in the middle of the room,
with one hand firmly clutching my candlestick.

But the window refused to move. The burglar seemed to have no proper
tools; he got something under the sash, but it snapped, and through the
heavy plate-glass I could hear him swearing. Then he abruptly left the
window and made for the front of the house.

I blundered in the same direction, my unshod feet striking on projecting
furniture and causing me agonies, even through my excitement. When I
reached the front door, however, I was amazed to find it unlocked, and
standing open perhaps an inch. I stopped uncertainly. I was in a
peculiar position; not even the most ardent admirers of antique brass
candlesticks indorse them as weapons of offense or defense. But, there
seeming to be nothing else to do, I opened the door quietly and stepped
out into the darkness.

The next instant I was flung heavily to the porch floor. I am not a
small man by any means, but under the fury of that onslaught I was a
child. It was a porch chair, I think, that knocked me senseless; I know
I folded up like a jack-knife, and that was all I did know for a few
minutes.

When I came to I was lying where I had fallen, and a candle was burning
beside me on the porch floor. It took me a minute to remember, and
a