Rudder Grange Author:Frank Richard Stockton Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV TREATING OF A NOVEL STYLE OF BURGLAR I Have spoken of my pistol. During the early part of our residence at Rudder Grange I never thought of such... more » a thing as owning a pistol. But it was different now. I kept a Colt's revolver loaded in the bureau-drawer in our bedroom. The cause of this change was burglars. Not that any of these unpleasant persons had visited us, but we very much feared they would. Several houses in the vicinity had been entered during the past month, and we never could tell when our turn would come. To be sure, our boarder suggested that if we were to anchor out a little farther at night, no burglar would risk catching his death of cold by swimming out to us; but Euphemia having replied that it would be rather difficult to move a canal-boat every night without paddle-wheels or sails or mules, especially if it were aground, this plan was considered to be effectually disposed of. So we made up our minds that we must fasten up everything very securely, and I bought a pistol and two burglar-alarms. One of these I affixed to the most exposed window, and the other to the door which opened on the deck. These alarms were very simpleaffairs, but they were good enough. When they were properly attached to a window or door, and it was opened, a little gong sounded like a violently deranged clock striking all the hours of the day at once. The window did not trouble us much, but it was rather irksome to have to make the attachment to the door every night and to take it off every morning. However, as Euphemia said, it was better to take a little trouble than to have the house full of burglars, which was true enough. We made all the necessary arrangements in case burglars should make an inroad upon us. At the first sound of the alarm, Euphemia an...« less