ish me to do?"

"If you're a cop, go to it--cop somebody," she replied with a brusque
laugh--"and then clear out. I can use the room and time you're
occupying. Besides, while you stand there staring as if you'd never
seen a good-looking woman in a nightgown before, you're slipping the
said burglar a fine young chance to make the front door--unless he's
under the bed."

"Under the bed?" stammered the masquerader.

"You said something then," the woman snapped. "Why not look?"

Mechanically obedient to her suggestion, down P. Sybarite plumped on
his knees, lifted the silken valance at the foot of the bed, and
pretended to explore the darkness thereunder--finding precisely what
he had anticipated, that is to say, nothing.

While thus occupied (and badgering his addled wits to invent some
plausible way to elude this Amazon) he was at once startled and still
further dismayed to hear the bed-springs creak, a light double thump
as two bare feet found the floor, and again the woman's voice
flavoured with acid sarcasm.

"You seem to find it interesting down there. Is it the view? Or are
you trying to hypnotise your burglar by the well-known power of the
human eye?"

"It's pure and simple reverence for the proprieties," P. Sybarite
replied without stirring, "keeps me emulating the fatuous ostrich. I
don't pretend it's comfortable, but I, believe me, madam, am a plain
man, of modest tastes, unaccustomed to--"

"Get up!" the lady interrupted peremptorily. "I guess your regard for
the proprieties won't suffer any more than my fair name. Come out of
that and hunt burglars like a good little cop."

"But who am I," pleaded the little man, "to gaze unblinded upon the
sun?"

"That," said the lady, smothering a giggle, "will be about _all_ from
you. Get up--or I'll call in a sure-enough cop to search your title to
that uniform."

Hastily P. Sybarite withdrew his head and rose. An embarrassed glance
askance comforted him measurably: the lady had thrown an exquisite
negligee over her nightdress and had thrust her pretty feet into
extravagantly pretty silken mules.

"Now," said she tersely, "we'll comb the premises for this burglar of
yours: and if we don't find him"--her lips tightened, her brows
clouded ominously--"I promise you an interesting time of it!"

"I'm vastly diverted as it is--truly I am!" protested P. Sybarite,
ruefully eyeing the lady's pistol. "But there 's really no need to
disturb yourself: I'm quite compet