THE Boxing Night Burglars

King Country Chronicle, Volume III, Issue 161, 3 June 1909, Page 4

THE Boxing Night Burglars

By LUKE WOODBURN

We enjoy ourselves occasionally in Dallboroogh, though our London acquaintance* are wont to wonder bow we can endure living here tall the year round. No Society, they say, and knit their eyebrows when we enumerate the Frickbys, who are the principal landholders for miles around,and send their sods to Cambridge and have a young lady with a B.A. degree somewhere attached to her to teach the girls, and an Alsatian governess to impart a pure French accent. Lady Frickby says Mademoisdellc Schiff is her name, and bcr accent is rather as though she had a cold.in her bead. Perhaps it is the mountains. When one bam't called at Furze Court for some time she says:

"Fous defenz picn rare, Mademoisdclle."

j And she says it if you were only | there yesterday. But French blood is French blood wherever it comes from, [ as we found out when it suddenly occurred to Annette Frickby,who is their I favourite child, to urge on Sir John I and Lady Frickby to give a fancy ball i on Boxing night It was a sudden flowering out of ' frivolity upon Annette's part, because , she has always been referred to as the I Serious Miss Frickby. For three years I past, evrr since she has let down her frocks and pinned up her back plait, Annette has gone about in plainly made gowns, not even tailor, with her hair parted all the way down the middle and brushed smoothly back behind i her ears, and done up in an insignificant little braid behind. Her hats alone. Morice Frickby who is not at t all serious, used in say Were enough fto make angels weep. Felt things, } sailor shaped, or straw in summer with ' a ribbon round the crown and elastic !to keep them on. Annette used to i confess to the senior curate, who is very High Church, in those hats. And .«&♦* would go district visiting with a I basket full of leaflet*. The senior I curate, who is extremely Anglican, | supplied the leaflet* and no* he is married to Miss Needles, of Nccdlcham. a wealthy foxhunting spinster twice his age, and has been presented to the rich living of Foxing Cubbsworthy. which is in the gift of his wife and can only be held by a clergyman who is Broad Church and hunts | twice a week in season. All is changd with Annette.

It may be—this is the merest guess because of Captain taxing. He is staying in lodgings in the Market Square, while he does something for the Government in connection with Territorials and musketry instruction. Walter Frickby is a Territorial, and bis shooting has much improved, he says, since Captain Laxing began to be a constant visitor at Furze Court Before that he confided to me that Laxing used constantly to call him a "bosseyed powder burner." "And that hurts a man's feelings," as Walter tells us. He will be glad when the Captain has gone back to !louns*l»w and only the range sergeant left in charge. "You can always tip the range sergeant to say you have put in your proper amount of plugging." he declares, probably without sufficient ground.

"But suppose everybody else should do the same thing, and there should be a foreign invasion," I suggested, "and nobody knew how to shoot?"

Walter said my view was purely pessimistic and that be hoped women would never get the vote. "Life would be too strenuous with a lot of conscientious, fussy, middle aged women poking into everything and wanting to know whether things were being done."

I tried to look as though I agreed with him. Every girl knows how it is done and he had just ridden over with invitations for the Frickby"s fancy ball. There were just ten days between us and the glorious event Fraulicn Schiff, from an obscure foreigner in shiny black silk, with a curious accent like chronic catarrh,instantly soared to the height* of popularity. She knew how to make an entire pierrot costume out of a double bedded cotton sheet and adorn it with black pompons. She knew bow old fashioned chintz curtains could be converted into saqucs of the Georgian period. She devised a striking Pierrot costume for Walter out of a roll of calico which had been left over from the Anglican Church bazaar. She made Lady Frickby into Catherine dc Medici before you could tum round; and Mona was a royal milkmaid of the Little Trianon some of the chintz came in for that. Annette was a Geisha, with a flowery kimono, a large obi -you have to be very careful how you arrange your obi, because tied in one way only it announces you as respectable. Fanny—she is the eldest of us, and we are a targe middle-class family, all girls—Fanny went as the Fairy Petroline the Spirit of the Age. The other girls were invited, but could not go, as every calico costume cost money. I rather fancied myself as Dolly Reformed in a teagown trimmed with receipted bills. Father looked at me queerly when 1 applied for some clean ones of bis to sew on, and said I had better apply to somewbody who bad a less plentiful array of olive branches about bis table.

The ball was glorious, and frightfully exciting just at the end when—but that's for by-and-bye. There wasn't a band, but the Unlimited Amusements Company had sent down rolls and rolls of valses to be performed on the Frickbys' pianello. Fraulein Schiff and Miss Ling, the rector's wife's lady help, bad undertaken to relieve each other at the instrument Most of the supper things bad come down from town, and the decorations of the Jacobean ball and ball room were lovely. The temperate bouse bad been made into an arctic fairyland, with sparkling crysalsof imitation snow, non-inflammable, scattered over the tiles and arcades of palms, and groves of poinsettias. Don't think we can't do things in Dullborough when we choose, because we can. Of course, though there were no masks, everybody tried to talk ami behave as much as possible in harmony—this is Addisonian English in harmony with the character they represented.

It's a frightful swot having to go on grassing about moonbeams and that sort of Pierrot rot," Walter Frickby said to me confidentially, "but I s=ha!l keep it up. Though I feel I'm in f>.r a thundering bad headache tomorrow. Come and have some more champagnecup.it's the best pick-me-up going." Everybody else seemed to be having champagne cup. Perhaps because seeing yourself reflected over and over again attired in fancy dress in a great many long, shining mirrors is apt to make you wish you had stayed at home if you happen to be a plainish girl and your costume has bad to be bought under a pound, and made of home-made materials supplied by the local drapers. There weren't any old brocades and chintzes stored away in our wardrobes and presses. But Walter Frickby told mc " He has gone back to be plucked at Cambridge- he says he shall be plucked—and I try to think it was only the champagne cup raaie him so affectionate that night He was even inclined to be jealous. "What arc those cbaps staring at?" he quite growled, glaring at two gentlemen I had never seen before, and who were very originally and oddly got up. "I mean those beggars, each of 'em propping up a part of the side of the ballroom door, and looking about them as cool as--melon*. And like their cheek to come in a seedy get-up like that What are tbey meant for, any-

way?" He was eoing on like this when Annette rushed up. her cheeks red and her eyes dancing. "Who do you think is here?" she screamed. "The Special Correspondent of the Dullborough Social Chronicle and a friend, who, I believ», is a London newspaper man. There they arc over by the door. And they arc so funnily dressed. I know each of them represents a character, but the question is what character? Do go over and pump them, Walter, and find out"

He sai I he would if I would come too, and we went over, feeling a little shy at the thought of catechising two newspaper correspondents. "For you never know what they're going to put in their beastly papers," said Walter. "I say, you, sir." Walter has not a good social manner, but his heart is in the right place and his other muscles are exceptionally well developed. "I say, you, sir, and the other gentleman, what kind of characters do you call yourselves, eh? A a young lady wants to know." The two newspaper gentlemen looked at Walter, and then significantly exchanged a smile. One was middleaged and red nosed. "Of course the red is paint," I thought He wore a greasy costermonger suit of brownish cloth, and the other was in shabby moleskins and an imitation fur cap. Each man had a comforter twirled round his neck. Their hands were gloved, but only at the finger ends, the rest of the gloves having been cut oft", and one carried a dark lantern and a curious implement, which I afterwards learnt was a centre-bit, and the other had a long shiny steel bar with a flattened end. I subsequently learned that it was called a jemmy.

The younger stranger spoke. "Tell the young lady," he said, in rather a pleasant voice, "that we're here in character as Slim Sam from Shoreditch, and -—" "And Cracksman Charley," put in the other stranger in a very hoarse voice, clearing his throat suggestively and unpleasntly, "from Nowhere in Particular since la«t bout of jug." "And both ready to take on another <*Hb at short notice, miss," said the first, winking at me. "You can trust these togs for being the real article. They come or a second-'and barrer in the Mile End road." "Look here . . ." began Walter, in an indignant tone. "Oh, what nonsense, Walter," I said as quickly as I could. "Mr- ah! Mr Sam and Mr Charley arc only keeping up the chractcrs they have underaken to represent It's the pro|>cr thing to do." N "You've 'it it miss, said the elder of the two newspaper men; and the younger, with a smile as pleasant as his voice, asked me if I would give him the next dance. It was just beginning, and as Walter, turning bis back, walked off in a huff, quite forgetting that a Pierrot would rather die than be serious or ill-tempered,l found myself launched upon the stream of waltzers with the newspaper gentleman.

He breathed hard as he danced, and his old clohes smelt strongly of tobacco. It struck mc that he and the other newspaper gentleman might have bought new ones while they were about it. But literary people think so much of correct detail. He greatly admired the jewels of the ladies, Lady Frickby's particularly, and I said she had heaps mora, and when he wanted to know where she kept them, I said in a safe in the wall of her boudoir in the west wing. After that the dance came to an end, and I missed both the newpaper gentlemen—l could not make out which was the London one and which wasn't—from the ballroom. I missed Walter, too, and there was a blank of two dances on my card that were not given to anybody, and I went and sat with Lady Frickby.and heard what the girls gowns, and the decorations, and the supper had cost. Then a dapper little round gentleman, very politely mannered and in evening dress came up and bowed, and introduced himself to our hostess as thespecial correspondent of the Dullborough Social Chronicle. "And I trust you will overlook my not having attended in costume." he said, as he smiled himself into creases. "It is not supposed to be professional etiquette, for one thing. And for another, my wife wouldn't hear of it. She thinks elderly people dressed up are no better than Merry Andrews." Lady Frickby, who was attired as Catherine de Medici, glanced across the room at Sir Robert, who wore a three coloured velvet cap, and a velvet gown edged with fur, and black woollen tights, as Sir Thomas Moore. She only coughed, but she did that with so much meaning that the special correspondent of the Dullborough Social Chronicle turned scarlet and evaporated.

"I think," sho said, rising, "that we had belter go down to supper. It is one o'clock, and I feel sure everybody is hungry."

The great stable clock was striking one as Lady Frickby took the arm of the Rural Dean, ami Sir Robert gav<.his to the D.arrs \v!f. . Plv.-r;. body paired otf; only Anr.eu.; ami Waiter were missing- And the Rural Dean and Lady Frickby headed the long train of guests towards the door. Then shall I ever forget it the door of the ballroom was thrown open. Baxter, the butler, rushed tumultously in. Lady Frickby, in the act of opening her mouth to ask what had happened, screamed at his ghastly face.

"My lady—my lady "he gasped. "The plate! Off the supper table! Gone, to a fork. Clean swooped and gone."

He wrung his hands. Lady Frickby fainted. Sir Robert ordered all the house doors to be locked. Everybody talked at once. Suddenly a great tumult rose. . . in the snowy avenue beyond the long shining windows. Somebody threw one open. The terrace l3y beyond. And out we all trooped, a motley crowd of varied periods, prancing in coloured calico over the powdery snow.under the jewelled skies of a fine frosty December night. And something struggled in the frosty shrubbery, and there were oaths and shouts and blows.

"Hold on a minute, Frickby," I heard in Captain Laxing's voice. "Till the—cows come home," panted Walter, adding, 'Now will you keep quiet, you brute, or do you want another crack like the last?' " Some servants and men guests ran in then, and-

"Here they arc, ladies and gentlemen, crowed Walter Frickby, momentarily releasing his side of the collar of the gentleman who had presented himself in the character of Cracksman Charley to strike the attitude of a showman. "A brace of burglars as large as life, stopped by me and Laxing as they were cutting off with all the silver off the supper table. Bring the sack along, Williams." Sure enough, the silver was in the sack, and all the jewels left in Lady Frickby's safe. And the two strangers, who had certainly not deceived us as to their true calling.spent the night under guard in the justice ' room, and were formally committed by Sir Robert in the morning.

It gives mc a queer thrill even now to think that I danced a valse with a burglar. But, for a burglar, he certainly danced well.