A WEIRD MIDNIGHT ADVENTURE.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 18, Issue 12, 8 February 1907, Page 2

A WEIRD MIDNIGHT ADVENTURE.

A cook in a merchant's family, where followers wore forbidden, took 'advantage of the absence oV her master to invito, a young man to pay her a visit. Their interview was cut short by the expected return of the master, and the servant had barely time to push her visito" into the ollice, telling him to wait patiently, and he would be liberated as soon as the coast was clear. The moment (or escape did not, come that night, for the master remained indoors, and, on retiring, locked the office, in which had been deposited a large sum of money. The cook whispered through the- keyhole how matters stood, and encouraged her ■unhappy lover to make the best, of his position. : Next morning, finding no means of escape, she dole-mined io tell her master. The office door was immediately opened, but the young man instead of expressing regret at the scrape into which he had got, proceeded at once to tell an extraordinary story. After trying in vain to get to sleep, he heard, in the middle of the night, a noise like that made by the removal cf glass, and saw a hand put through the window. Opening his penknife he stabbed the hand twice, and the burglar disappeared, with a low cry of pain ami astonishment. Even the broken window and the traces or blood did not overcome the master's .suspicions that this was an ingenious story invented for the purpose cf covering a retreat. The cashier was accordingly sent for, in order to ascertain whether any money had been taken. The messenger brought back word that the cashier was ill and unable to come. A clerk was, therefore, summoned to make the 'necessary investigation; but no sooner did he appear than the lover exclaimed, "That's the thief!" and sure enough, upon his hand \\%'iv found the telltale wounds made \,y the penknife.