The Beneficent Burglar

The agitated transit of Mr. Lewis Copewell through the anteroom of the Honorable Alexander Hamilton Burrow created a certain stir. With all the lawless magnificence of a comet that runs amuck through the heavens, he burst upon the somewhat promiscuous assemblage already seated there. The assemblage sat in dumb and patient expectancy. Quite obviously it was a waiting-list, already weary with enforced procrastination. Its many eyes were anxiously focussed on the door that sequestered the great man in the aloofness of his sanctum.

A young woman gazed across her typewriter at the supplicants seeking audience, with a calm hauteur which seemed to say, “Wait, varlets, wait! The great do not hurry.”

They returned her gaze sullenly but in silence. None ventured to penetrate beyond her desk to the portal forbiddingly placarded, “Private.” None, that is, until Mr. Copewell arrived.

“Where’s Aleck?” demanded that gentleman, mopping his perspiring brow with a silk handkerchief. “I want to see him quick!”

The young woman looked up blankly. She knew that Mr. Copewell and her employer were, in their private capacities, on terms of intimacy, but duty is duty, and law is impartial. Many persons wanted to see him quick. Since the triumph of civic reform had converted the attorney who paid her salary from a mere Aleck, who was even as other Alecks, into Alexander the Great, she felt that his friends in private life must adapt themselves to the altered condition of affairs.

Accordingly her reply came with frigid dignity. “Mr. Burrow instructed that he was not to be, on any account, interrupted.”

“Huh?” Into Mr. Copewell’s surprised voice crept the raucous note that the poet describes as “like the growl of the fierce watch-dog.”

“Huh?”

The young woman became glacial. “Mr. Burrow can’t see you.”

The glance which Mr. Copewell bent on this deterring female for a moment threatened to thaw her cold reserve into hot confusion. The waiting assemblage shuffled its feet, scenting war.

At the same moment the private door swung open and Mr. Burrow himself stood on the threshold. At the sight of him several gentlemen who were patriotically willing to serve their city in the police and fire departments came respectfully to their feet. One contractor, who had for sale a new paving-block, saluted in military fashion. Mr. Lewis Copewell took a belligerent stride toward the door as though he meant to win through by force of assault.

But Mr. Burrow made violence unnecessary. His smile revealed a welcoming row of teeth, which in modern America means “dee-lighted.”

“Trot right in, old chap,” he supplemented.

The young woman looked crestfallen. She felt that her chief had failed to hold up her hands in the stern requirements of discipline.

“Good morning, everybody!” rushed on Mr. Burrow, with a genial wave of his hand and a smile of benediction for the waiting minions. This second Alexander the Great knew that you can abuse a man’s patience if you are a person of importance and smile blandly enough. Some of the Cæsars could even massacre and remain popular—but they had to smile very winningly. “Terribly busy! Must make all interviews brief this morning,” went on the new dictator. “Must get over to the City Hall!” Then in view of congealing acidity on the visages of three newspaper men, he added, since no man is great enough to offend a reporter: “I’ll have a big story for you boys to-morrow. You know I’m your friend.” He swept Mr. Copewell into the private office and the door slammed on his smile.