“ ‘Don’t do it!’ I cried quite incoherently, ‘Santa Claus—’
“ ‘Ah,’ said the burglar, as he put the decanter on the table and stood looking at me, ‘you’ve thought about that, too.’
“ ‘I can’t express a millionth part of what I’ve thought of,’ I cried, ‘but it’s something like this … oh, can’t you see it? Why are children not afraid of Santa Claus, though he comes like a thief in the night? He is permitted secrecy, trespass, almost treachery—because there are more toys where he has been. What should we feel if there were less? Down what chimney from hell would come the goblin that should take away the children’s balls and dolls while they slept? Could a Greek tragedy be more gray and cruel than that daybreak and awakening? Dog-stealer, horse-stealer, man-stealer—can you think of anything so base as a toy-stealer?’
“The burglar, as if absently, took a large revolver from his pocket and laid it on the table beside the decanter, but still kept his blue reflective eyes fixed on my face.
“ ‘Man!’ I said, ‘all stealing is toy-stealing. That’s why it’s really wrong. The goods of the unhappy children of men should be really respected because of their worthlessness. I know Naboth’s vineyard is as painted as Noah’s Ark. I know Nathan’s ewe-lamb is really a woolly baa-lamb on a wooden stand. That is why I could not take them away. I did not mind so much, as long as I thought of men’s things as their valuables; but I dare not put a hand upon their vanities.’
“After a moment I added abruptly, ‘Only saints and sages ought to be robbed. They may be stripped and pillaged; but not the poor little worldly people of the things that are their poor little pride.’
“He set out two wineglasses from the cupboard, filled them both, and lifted one of them with a salutation towards his lips.
“ ‘Don’t do it!’ I cried. ‘It might be the last bottle of some rotten vintage or other. The master of this house may be quite proud of it. Don’t you see there’s something sacred in the silliness of such things?’
“ ‘It’s not the last bottle,’ answered my criminal calmly; ‘there’s plenty more in the cellar.’
“ ‘You know the house, then?’ I said.
“ ‘Too well,’ he answered, with a sadness so strange as to have something eerie about it. ‘I am always trying to forget what I know—and to find what I don’t know.’ He drained his glass. ‘Besides,’ he added, ‘it will do him good.’
“ ‘What will do him good?’
“ ‘The wine I’m drinking,’ said the strange person.
“ ‘Does he drink too much, then?’ I inquired.
“ ‘No,’ he answered, ‘not unless I do.’
“ ‘Do you mean,’ I demanded, ‘that the owner of this house approves of all you do?’
“ ‘God forbid,’ he answered; ‘but he has to do the same.’
“The dead face of the fog looking in at all three windows unreasonably increased a sense of riddle, and even terror, about this tall, narrow house we had entered out of the sky. I had once more the notion about the gigantic genii—I fancied that enormous Egyptian faces, of the dead reds and yellows of Egypt, were staring in at each window of our little lamp-lit room as at a lighted stage of marionettes. My companion went on playing with the pistol in front of him, and talking with the same rather creepy confidentialness.
“ ‘I am always trying to find him—to catch him unawares. I come in through skylights and trapdoors to find him; but whenever I find him—he is doing what I am doing.’
“I sprang to my feet with a thrill of fear. ‘There is someone coming,’ I cried, and my cry had something of a shriek in it. Not from the stairs below, but along the passage from the inner bedchamber (which seemed somehow to make it more alarming), footsteps were coming nearer. I am quite unable to say what mystery, or monster, or double, I expected to see when the door was pushed open from within. I am only quite certain that I did not expect to see what I did see.
“Framed in the open doorway stood, with an air of great serenity, a rather tall young woman, definitely though indefinably artistic—her dress the colour of spring and her hair of autumn leaves, with a face which, though still comparatively young, conveyed experience as well as intelligence. All she said was, ‘I didn’t hear you come in.’
“ ‘I came in another way,’ said the Permeator, somewhat vaguely. ‘I’d left my latchkey at home.’
“I got to my feet in a mixture of politeness and mania. ‘I’m really very sorry,’ I cried. ‘I know my position is irregular. Would you be so obliging as to tell me whose house this is?’
“ ‘Mine,’ said the burglar, ‘May I present you to my wife?’
“I doubtfully, and somewhat slowly, resumed my seat; and I did not get out of it till nearly morning. Mrs. Smith (such was the prosaic name of this far from prosaic household) lingered a little, talking slightly and pleasantly. She left on my mind the impression
