The Right Way to Do Wrong by Harry Houdini Page A

arranged along the wall, the rods of jewelry and watches from the shop window. I selected as many as my pockets would hold, and cautiously made my way downstairs again. Upon leaving the house, I walked backward again through the snow, and almost collided with the milkman just starting on his rounds.
    â€œÂ â€˜You have a very remarkable way of walking,’ he said.
    â€œÂ â€˜Oh,’ I replied, ‘it is an agreeable change after the monotony of always walking forward; but in the daytime I cannot practise it, owing to the remarks of foolish people who will not mind their own business.’
    â€œHe seemed to enter into the joke, but no sooner had we reached the road, than he shouted, ‘Police!’ and ‘Stop thief!’ for all he was worth.
    â€œI had a good start, however, and two hours later a Hoxton ‘fence’ received a considerable addition to his store of valuables concealed under the floor of his bedroom.”
    The question has often been asked how burglars get away with their booty, especially when it makes, as it often does, a bulky bundle. The police are apt to be suspicious of people who carry bundles in the small hours of the night, and ask inconvenient questions. If any one doubts this, let him try the experiment of going out between two and three in the morning, carrying a bag heavily loaded with bricks. He will not proceed many yards without being pounced upon by a “cop.” A story in point is told by an ex-convict to a well-known detective:
    â€œI had a pal with me, and we broke into the country palace of one of the wealthiest dukes in England. The silver-plate we got filled two bags. We had just dragged the sacks into the thicket near the house when the alarm was raised. Think of the tight place we were in—two o’clock in the morning, and a policeman every thirty yards all around the grounds, every road guarded and every path. Safe enough inside the ring we were, but when daylight came, what would happen? Still the next day dawned, and no trace was found either of the plunder, or of us, and by evening of that same day, it was all melted and sold to the ‘fence’ in the city. The police were utterly baffled as to how the perpetrators of the robbery got away with two sacks full of plate. No one had passed the cordon of police except a couple of countrymen from the home farm, who were driving a cart to market, containing a slaughtered sheep. Now I might tell the police something that would interest them. If they had turned that sheep over, they would have found, instead of the usual bodily organs, that the carcass contained a valuable collection of silver, and if they had looked under the straw, they might have found the rest of the duke’s missing property.”
    The Second-Story Man
. The professional burglar of standing in his profession looks down somewhat with condescension upon the second-story burglar, whose risks are not nearly so great, and whose rewards, of course, are proportionately smaller. The second-story man avoids breaking and entering a house. His forte is obtaining an entrance by means of convenient porches, over-hanging boughs of trees, water-conductors, and lightning-rods, up which he climbs with the greatest ease, and enters through an unguarded window in that part of the house where he has planned to make his robbery.
    Many successful second-story men work only in the daytime, and are prepared with all sorts of plausible excuses to explain their presence if detected in a house. A burglar engaged in going through the premises after jewels known to be in the house may, in a second’s time, assume all the appearance and actions of the honest workman come to repair the plumbing, and by his clever effrontery, escape even after he is detected. Usually, however, the second-story man so plans and times his work as to enter the house when most of the family are absent, and thus avoid the risk of detection.
    BURGLARS’