Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 April 1894 — ESCAPED WITH HIS LIFE. [ARTICLE]

ESCAPED WITH HIS LIFE.

The Burglar Secured No Booty, but Wai Not Inclined to Complain. Lightly the burglar moved from room to room through the bouse, whose inmates, wrapped in the blissful sleep that comes to the weary breast after an evening spent at an amateur concert, heard not his feathery footfall. Borne to his quickened senses from the sleeping chambers came the sound of deep, regular breathing that seemed mechanically to mark the flightof time as it moved on sluggish wing toward the great beyond, says the Chicago Tribune. Passing noiselessly into a large apartment he turned his dark lantern about until its pale rays fell upon a rich dressing-case on whose polished marble top were scattered in careless profusion the jewelry and other personal adornments of some strangely neglectful wearer. His hand closed eagerly on the costly trinkets and he was on the point of transferring them to the capacious pocket of his overcoat, when one of the slumberers moved uneasily and in a muffled voice made the remark: “Great Scott, Emily, I thought I had explained it so you could understand it! Now, if you won’t interrupt me I’ll give you the facts about this whole tariff business from beginning to end ” The jewelry fell from the nerveless grasp of the burglar. Gasping for breath, he staggered to the nearest window, jumped blindly through it, carrying the sash with him, and fell upon the sloping roof of the kitchen, from which be rolled to the top of the coal shed and thence to the ground, alighting in a snowbank; and without stopping to pick uo his hat or his lantern he dashed with breathless haste away from the premises and vanished in the darkness. He had secured no booty, but he had escaped a horror worse than death.