W. L. Alden

“ The robbers climbed into the baggage-car, and when they couldn't find Jim they brought up the conductor and told him to open the safe. The conductor swore that nobody knew the combination except Jim, and that he wasn't aboard the train that night, but had laid over at Jones's Misery, owing to not feeling very well. The robbers, seeing as Jim was not to be found, believed what the conductor said, and they went to work to pick the lock of the safe. Of course they couldn't do it, for that lock was just a masterpiece of engineering, and there wasn't a man living that could pick it. ”

“ All he could say was, that the word had something to do either with robbery or politics, and that it must be a word of five letters, that being the way the lock was made.
"Well, we set to work to think of every word in the language relating to robbery and containing five letters. It was like working out some of these puzzles that you see in the Sunday papers, but we couldn't hit on the right answer. Seeing as 'robbery' didn't furnish us with the word, we tried words connected with 'politics,' and if we had only known it, we were on the right track, but we never got there. ”

“ Illustrated by R. Jack.
"I SEE," said the Jericho station-master, "that a train on the Denver road has just been held up, and the safe robbed of over three hundred thousand dollars. Well! these things has to happen so long as the present style of burglar-proof safes is in fashion. Any robber that has been properly educated to the business can open a safe inside of half-an-hour, and can do it without any dynamite or such violent ways. Now a safe can be made that nobody can open except with the proper combination, for I've seen such a safe myself. ”