E. Nesbit

“ Foulkes would have had to try some one else directly.
We were dumb with amazement.
Our robber told my father about the other burglar, and said he was sorry he’d let him escape; but my father said, “Oh, it’s all right: poor beggar; if he really had kids at home: you never can tell—forgive us our debts, don’t you know? But tell me about the first business: it must have been moderately entertaining.”
Then our robber told my father how I had rushed into the room with a pistol, crying out ... But you know all about that. ”

“ The highwayman industry isn’t what it was.”
“What about a bike?” said H. O.
But the robber thought bicycles were low—and besides you couldn’t go across country with them when occasion arose, as you could with a trusty steed. And he talked of highwaymen as if he knew just how we liked hearing it.
Then he told us how he had been a pirate captain—and how he had sailed over waves mountains high, and gained rich prizes—and how he did begin to think that here he had found a profession to his mind.
“I don’t say there are no ups and downs in it,” he said, “especially in stormy weather. ”

“ And he applauded our valour, and Alice and H. O. explained that they would have said “Surrender!” too, only they were reinforcements.
The robber ate some of the chestnuts—and we sat and wondered when father would come home, and what he would say to us for our intrepid conduct. And the robber told us of all the things he had done before he began to break into houses.
Dicky picked up the tools from the floor, and suddenly he said: “Why, this is father’s screwdriver and his gimlets and all! Well, I do call it jolly cheek to pick a man’s locks with his own tools!” ”

“ And just as we had got out of the landing-window on to the portico, the Water Rates came up the path with his book that he tears the thing out of that says how much you have got to pay, and the little ink-bottle hung on to his buttonhole, in case you should pay him. The Water Rates is a sensible man, and knows it is always well to be prepared, whatever happens. Alice said afterwards that she rather liked the Water Rates, really, and Noel said he had a face like a good uncle, or the man who rewards the honest boy for restoring the purse ”

“ So Dicky and Oswald crept down, and when we got to the bottom of the stairs we saw father’s study door just ajar, and the crack of light. And Oswald was so pleased to see the light—knowing that burglars prefer the dark, or at any rate the dark lantern—that he felt really sure it was the cat after all, and then he thought it would be fun to make the others upstairs think it was really a robber. So he cocked the pistol—you can cock it, but it doesn’t go off—and he said, “Come on, Dick!” and he rushed at the study door and burst into the room, crying: “Surrender! you are discovered ”

“ But this particular day we got Eliza into a good temper by giving her a horrid brooch with pretending amethysts in it, that an aunt gave to Alice, so Eliza brought up an extra scuttle of coals; and when the greengrocer came with the potatoes (he is always late on Saturdays) she got some chestnuts from him. So that when father went out after his dinner, there was a jolly fire in Noel’s room, and we were able to go in and be Red Indians in blankets most comfortably. Eliza had gone out; she says she gets things cheaper on Saturday nights. ”

“ Throw up your hands!”
And, as he finished saying it, he saw before him, standing on the study hearthrug, a Real Robber. There was no mistake about it: Oswald was sure it was a robber, because it had a screwdriver in its hands, and was standing near the cupboard door that H. O. broke the lock off, and there were gimlets and screws and things on the floor. There is nothing in that cupboard but old ledgers and magazines and the tool chest, but of course a robber could not know that beforehand. ”

“ One of the footmen had six new pennies: the Lord Mayor always pays his servants’ wages in new pennies. I spent fourpence of that in bread and cheese, that on the table’s the tuppence. Ah, it’s a poor trade! ”

“ And that burglar had the cheek to put his head in at the window and say, “I’ll give yer love to the kids and the missis”—and he was off like winking, and there were Alice and Dora trying to pick up our robber, and asking him whether he was hurt, and where. He wasn’t hurt at all, except a lump at the back of his head. And he got up, and we dusted the kitchen floor off him. Eliza is a dirty girl.
Then he said: “Let’s put up the shutters. It never rains but it pours. ”