Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 February 1893 — When His Nerve Failed. [ARTICLE]

When His Nerve Failed.

Detroit Free PressThe burglar was not a bad looking man, although his business had a bad look. He stood by the door of a sleeping room and peeked in. A faint light was burning and he could hear the measured breathing of some one asleep. Cautiously he crept inside, stooping low, and looked around. No one there save a sleeping woman. In an instant a cloth saturated with ether was thrown over her face, and he waited one, two, three —ton minutes, and the stertorous breathing of the sleeper told him the drug was doing its workA” With a dexterious hand he seized the jewelry and money lying on the dressing case, and began a quick search in the drawers of the case. “00-oo,” came a voice from the shadows of the room. Quick as a flash the burglar clasped his silent knife and turned to meet his victim. No one was visible. “00-oo,” camo the voice again, and the burglar saw a child in the crib by the Toot of the bed. It was a pretty baby, sleepily holding up its hands to him. He let his knife fall to his side, and stepping over to the crib, touched the child. It oooed again softly, and held up its arms for him to take it. The impulse was beyond his control, and ne lifted the baby to his bosom, and it nestled its soft, white cheek down to his and put its white arm around his neck. He purred to it, and in a moment its curly head was laid against his face, and it was asleep again. “Never seen a kid like that," he whispered to himself. “Most of um is afraid of strangers,” and tenderly he laid it in the crib. Then be went back to the dressing cose. He stood still a moment, and then looked furtively over his shoulder toward the crib. The sleeping face of the child was turned toward him. Slowly he replaced on the case all he had taken from it, hastily snatched from the woman's face the* saturated cloth, opened a window near the bed, and quietly slipped down stairs. Oro? on the street again he looked up at the bouse hungrily. 4 ‘Dang itiy he growled, “a man that ain’t got no more gizzard than I have ought to git out of the busiAnd he disappeared into the eiiado mb of the night.