f
crib I like when I'm on the job. You can just walk in and out as you
choose." But, Aunt Janet, old Roger was cuter than any burglar. He
had the place so guarded that the burglar would have been a baffled
burglar. There are two steel shields which can slide out from the
wall and lock into the other side right across the whole big window.
One is a grille of steel bands that open out into diamond-shaped
lozenges. Nothing bigger than a kitten could get through; and yet
you can see the garden and the mountains and the whole view--much the
same as you ladies can see through your veils. The other is a great
sheet of steel, which slides out in a similar way in different
grooves. It is not, of course, so heavy and strong as the safe-door
which covers the little opening in the main wall, but Rooke tells me
it is proof against the heaviest rifle-hall.

Having told you this, I must tell you, too, Aunt Janet, lest you
should be made anxious by the _arriere-pensee_ of all these warlike
measures of defence, that I always sleep at night with one of these
iron screens across the window. Of course, when I am awake I leave
it open. As yet I have tried only, but not used, the grille; and I
don't think I shall ever use anything else, for it is a perfect
guard. If it should be tampered with from outside it would sound an
alarm at the head of the bed, and the pressing of a button would roll
out the solid steel screen in front of it. As a matter of fact, I
have been so used to the open that I don't feel comfortable shut in.
I only close windows against cold or rain. The weather here is
delightful--as yet, at all events--but they tell me that the rainy
season will be on us before very long.

I think you will like my den, aunty dear, though it will doubtless be
a worry to you to see it so untidy. But that can't be helped. I
must be untidy _somewhere_; and it is best in my own den!

Again I find my letter so long that I must cut it off now and go on
again to-night. So this must go as it stands. I shall not cause you
to wait to hear all I can tell you about our new home.

Your loving
RUPERT.

_From Rupert Sent Leger_, _Vissarion_, _to Janet MacKelpie_, _Croom_.