Roundabout Papers - Penn State University

Thackerayunknown to you and me who never did anything wrongin our lives? The housebreaker must snatch a fearful joyas he walks unchallenged by the policeman with hissack full of spoons and tankards. Do not cracksmen,when assembled together, entertain themselves with storiesof glorious old burglaries which they or bygoneheroes have committed? But that my age is mature andmy habits formed, I should really just like to try a littlecriminality. Fancy passing a forged bill to your banker;calling on a friend and sweeping his sideboard of plate,his hall of umbrellas and coats; and then going home todress for dinner, say—and to meet a bishop, a judge,and a police magistrate or so, and talk more morallythan any man at table! How I should chuckle (as myhost’s spoons clinked softly in my pocket) whilst I wasuttering some noble speech about virtue, duty, charity!I wonder do we meet garroters in society? In an averagetea-party, now, how many returned convicts are there?Does John Footman, when he asks permission to go andspend the evening with some friends, pass his time inthuggee; waylay and strangle an old gentleman, or two;let himself into your house, with the house-key of course,and appear as usual with the shaving-water when youring your bell in the morning? The very possibility ofsuch a suspicion invests John with a new and romanticinterest in my mind. Behind the grave politeness of hiscountenance I try and read the lurking treason. Full ofthis pleasing subject, I have been talking thief-storieswith a neighbor. The neighbor tells me how some friendsof hers used to keep a jewel-box under a bed in theirroom; and, going into the room, they thought they hearda noise under the bed. They had the courage to look.The cook was under the bed—under the bed with thejewel-box. Of course she said she had come for purposesconnected with her business; but this was absurd. Acook under a bed is not there for professional purposes.A relation of mine had a box containing diamonds underher bed, which diamonds she told me were to bemine. Mine! One day, at dinner-time, between the entreesand the roast, a cab drove away from my relative’shouse containing the box wherein lay the diamonds.John laid the dessert, brought the coffee, waited all305