dimly reflected by the toilet mirror, in its usual place against the window. This mirror I saw moved, and next moment I had bounded from bed.
The mirror fell with a horrid clatter: the toilet-table followed it with a worse: the thief had gone as he had come ere my toes halted aching amid the debris.
A useless little balcony—stone slab and iron railing—jutted out from my window. I thought I saw a hand on the railing, another on the slab, then both together on the lower level for one instant before they disappeared. There was a dull yet springy thud on the grass below. Then no more noise but the distant thunder of the traffic, and the one that woke me, until the window next mine was thrown up.
“What the devil's up?”
The voice was rich, cheery, light-hearted, agreeable; all that my own was not as I answered “Nothing!” for this was not the first time my next-door neighbor had tried to scrape acquaintance with me.
“But surely, sir, I heard the very dickens of a row?”
“You may have done.”
“I was afraid some one had broken into your room!”
“As a matter of fact,” said I, put to shame by the undiminished good-humor of my neighbor, “some one did; but he's gone now, so let him be.”
“Gone? Not he! He's getting over that wall. After him—after him!” And the head disappeared from the window next mine.
I rushed into the corridor, and was just in time to intercept a singularly handsome young fellow, at whom I had hardly taken the trouble to look until now. He was in full evening dress, and his face was radiant with the spirit of mischief and adventure.
“For God's sake, sir,” I whispered, “let this matter rest. I shall have to come forward if you persist, and Heaven knows I have been before the public quite enough!”
His dark eyes questioned me an instant, then fell as though he would not disguise that he recollected and understood. I liked him for his good taste. I liked him for his tacit sympathy, and better still for the amusing
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