the area gate "go." When I consider the extremely free and
unconstrained manner in which I was received, poker and all, by that
assembly, my only surprise is that they did not signify their
arrivals by double knocks at the front door.

On one memorable night, and on one only, have I found it necessary to
use that formidable weapon which habit has rendered as familiar to my
hand as its flower to that of the Queen of Clubs.

The grey of morning had just begun to steal into our bedchamber, when
Mrs. B. ejaculated with unusual vigour, "Henry, Henry, they're in the
front drawing-room; and they've just knocked down the parrot screen."

"My love," I was about to observe, "your imaginative powers have now
arrived at the pitch of _clairvoyance_," when a noise from the room
beneath us, as if all the fireirons had gone off together with a
bang, compelled me to acknowledge, to myself at least, that there was
something in Mrs. B.'s alarms at last. I trod downstairs as
noiselessly as I could, and in almost utter darkness. The
drawing-room door was ajar, and through the crevice I could
distinguish, despite the gloom, as many as three muffled figures.
They were all of them in black clothing, and each wore over his face
a mask of crape, fitting quite closely to his features. I had never
been confronted by anything so dreadful before. Mrs. B. had cried
"Wolf!" so often that I had almost ceased to believe in wolves of
this description at all. Unused to personal combat, and embarrassed
by the novel circumstance under which I found myself, I was standing
undecided on the landing, when I caught that well-known whisper of
"_Henry, Henry!_" from the upper story. The burglars caught it also.
They desisted from their occupation of examining the articles of
_vertu_ upon the chimney-piece, while their fiendish countenances
relaxed into a hideous grin. One of them stole cautiously towards the
door where I was standing. I hear his burglarious feet, I heard the
"_Henry, Henry!_" still going on from above-stairs; I heard my own
heart pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat within me. It was one of those moments in
which one lives a life. The head of the craped marauder was projected
cautiously round the door, as if to listen. I poised my weapon, and
brought it down with unerring aim upon his skull. He fell like a
bullock beneath the axe, and I sped up to my bedchamber with all the
noiselessness and celerity of a bird. It was I who locked the door
this time, and piled