"Well, we were gradually fading toward a better land, on account of the daily loss of sleep; so we finally had the expert up again, and he ran a wire to the outside of the door, and placed a switch there, whereby Thomas, the butler, always made one little mistake--he switched the alarm off at night when he went to bed, and switched it on again at daybreak in the morning, just in time for the cook to open the kitchen door, and enable that gong to slam us across the house, sometimes breaking a window with one or the other of us.At the end of a week we recognized that this switch business was a delusion and a snare.We also discovered that a band of burglars had been lodging in the house the whole time--not exactly to steal, for there wasn't much left now, but to hide from the police, for they were hot pressed, and they shrewdly judged that the detectives would never think of a tribe of burglars taking sanctuary in a house notoriously protected by the most imposing and elaborate burglar alarm in America.
"Sent down for the expert again, and this time he struck a most dazzling idea--he fixed the thing so that opening the kitchen door would take off the alarm.It was a noble idea, and he charged accordingly.But you already foresee the result.I switched on the alarm every night at bed-time, no longer trusting on Thomas's frail memory; and as soon as the lights were out the burglars walked in at the kitchen door, thus taking the alarm off without waiting for the cook to do it in the morning.You see how aggravatingly we were situated.For months we couldn't have any company.Not a spare bed in the house; all occupied by burglars.
"Finally, I got up a cure of my own.The expert answered the call, and ran another ground wire to the stable, and established a switch there, so that the coachman could put on and take off the alarm.That worked first rate, and a season of peace ensued, during which we got to inviting company once more and enjoying life.
"But by and by the irrepressible alarm invented a new kink.One winter's night we were flung out of bed by the sudden music of that awful gong, and when we hobbled to the annunciator, turned up the gas, and saw the word 'Nursery' exposed, Mrs.McWilliams fainted dead away, and I came precious near doing the same thing myself.I seized my shotgun, and stood timing the coachman whilst that appalling buzzing went on.I knew that his gong had flung him out, too, and that he would be along with his gun as soon as he could jump into his clothes.When I judged that the time was ripe, I crept to the room next the nursery, glanced through the window, and saw the dim outline of the coachman in the yard below, standing at present-arms and waiting for a chance.Then I hopped into the nursery and fired, and in the same instant the coachman fired at the red flash of my gun.Both of us were successful; I crippled a nurse, and he shot off all my back hair.We turned up the gas, and telephoned for a surgeon.There was not a sign of a burglar, and no window had been raised.One glass was absent, but that was where the coachman's charge had come through.Here was a fine mystery--a burglar alarm 'going off'
at midnight of its own accord, and not a burglar in the neighborhood!
"The expert answered the usual call, and explained that it was a 'False alarm.' Said it was easily fixed.So he overhauled the nursery window, charged a remunerative figure for it, and departed.
"What we suffered from false alarms for the next three years no stylographic pen can describe.During the next three months I always flew with my gun to the room indicated, and the coachman always sallied forth with his battery to support me.But there was never anything to shoot at--windows all tight and secure.We always sent down for the expert next day, and he fixed those particular windows so they would keep quiet a week or so, and always remembered to send us a bill about like this.
