IT WAS A NICE AND STEADY JOB.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 8, Issue 29, 9 April 1907, Page 8

IT WAS A NICE AND STEADY JOB.

i 10.-./.v and Casey came over from the old. count iy together. They drilled apart after ’■caching America. Hogan went into the at; business and made enough money tc I retiie, while poor Casey could never raise himself above a labourer’s pay. They met for the first time in many years the other day, an:' this is the conversation that took place between them : Casey; “Oh, me! Oh, my 1 can this be Jim Hogan me eyes are gazin' on ? Be the hookey, me bye, ye air lookin’ like a rail ginlleman," Hogan (rather stiffly); "Me friend, I-havc-a-slight-remimbrance of mating you somewhere abroad. Is there anything I can do for yez ?” Casey : " Ah, Tim, don’t be puttin’ on lugs wid your aqueals. I am looking for a job. Can ye give me wan ?" Hogan; " Well, come to think of it, I can. The wather pipe up at me house burst this mornin’ and I am jist on me way to the plumber’s. Now, I will lave the plumber go, give you a steady job the year round, pay you a dollar a day and your board and save money meself, and all you will have to do is just hold your finger on the lake." THE OFFICE TOWEL. Often I think of the old printing-office towel. It was a beautiful towel to gaze upon when it was fresh and clean on Monday morning, for then it was a yard wide, and as sweet as a lily. But by Monday evening it had the devil's finger-marks on it, and they were more plainly impressed than any footsteps that were ever made on the sands of Time. On Monday it was fit to wipe your face on for fifteen minutes after being put up. On Tuesday it was a hand-towel—that is, it would clean a printer’s hands, and soil any one else's. On Wednesday it would put a patentleather shine on a pair of brown-leathei shoes. And then it got thin, too, and it kept getting thinner, until it almost looked like a shoe-string. One day a compositor with the D.T.'s took it for a black snake, and rushing for ihe stair-way, fell all the way down over the devil who was coming up with an armful of pie wrapped in brown paper, and a pail of beer hanging on each finger. By Friday the towel was so black that you could run it over a galley and pull a proof. On Saturday it was wrung out into the ink-bottle, and then used in the press-room for drying the ink-tables. On Saturday forenoon a compositor had a headache, and tied it round his head. Oxalic acid would not take the black off, and he had to dye his red hair black to escape ridicule, Then a farmer bought it and took it home. Me said some time after that he had used it as a fertilizer, and had a splendid crop of flax and wincey shirts. HOW THE BURGLAR BURGLES. [by a man in the business.] The watchman we got rid of by the news of the sudden disappearance of his wife, who in turn had driven eleven miles to the bedside of her mother, reported to be dying. The next thing was to enter the bank. There was no way to get into the building except by the windows. So we daubed and painted a pane of glass with treacle, then pasted the bedquilt to it, smooth and tight. The syrup was thick as glue, and it took hold like a terrier. When it pasted all right wc took our little hammer and broke out the glass. 'There was no noise, because the blanket killed the taps and the molasses kept the broken glass from falling. A second later we had unfastened the window and were inside. Not being artists, simply good mechanics, wc laid for the vault door just in the good old way. We set the feet of the “puller” against the door and clinched its hand-like lingers on the combination knob, and half-a-dozen turns of the wheel brought it out like an old tooth. So much for the power of the screw and Archimedes, or whoever invented it. There was a fairly smooth safe man with me in the gang, and he reached in the hole with his two fingers and pushed the tumblers around until we had the door unlocked. When we got inside the vault we found about £2OO in one package and a portion of another; the balance was in a little, compact, all-steel, burglar-proof safe which sat inside the vault. It was a powerful safe, and its strength seemed to sit and blink at 11s in the glare of the dark lanterns in a sort of serene confidence as to its ability to defy the most potent tools in our kit. We went straight to work, fortime was pressing. The night watchman might come back. We clapped the" puller" on the safe front and tore out the combination. Our "gopher” tried his skill on this as on the vault door, but the intervals were too complex. We therefore decided to take the short and noisy cut and blow it up. We puttied up the crack all around the door, so that it was air-tight. Then we made a little hole at the centre of the top crack, and applied the sucker of an air-pump. Next we opened a small hole similar to the first through the Knear the centre of the crack at the m of the door. Then holding a tin pan with its edge against the safe so as to cover the bottom hole with fine rifle powder, with which we heaped the pan, we commenced on the air-pump, and sucked in about a half-pound of powder in a minute. We fixed the fuse, and wrapped the whole safe in gunny sacks and bedquilts, set the fuse afire, and jumped out of the vault and closed the door. We heard the fuse spit and splutter for a time, and then " boom," lull and distant, like cannon miles away. We opened the door, and as soon as the smoke got out we went in. It was a success. The door was loose and ranshackly. Five wedges of steel and as many taps of our lead-filled, copper-cased maul to each, and the door was lifted to the floor. There was £2,000 iu packages stacked inside, £IOO each, pinned and amount marked on the band. But there was a cast-steel money-box inside still to hear from. The jar of blowing the door had not loosed it, and it was tightly rivetted to the upper interior of the safe. Workmen such as we never cried "a day done," and work in sight. I took a cold chisel and cut a place for a wedge. Then we brought a wedge to work, and a few taps smarted the box loose on its rivets half an inch. I suppose the power of a steel wedge of proper angle driven with five hundred pounds of force is half a thousand tons; I don't know. It was.enough for that moneyoox, anyhow. As soon as I had it started I took a jimmy nade in four parts; best wrought steel, slim is a fishing-rod, and as accurate in its action is a Geneva watch. I joined these parts, ind so made it four feet long. I inserted it where the wedge had been, and a strong pry ;ore loose the box. That jimmy would have noved a stone church. We took box, bag of bills, tools, and all the rest and crept away. Carrying our plunder, we walked in silence down the centre of one of the tree-arched streets of ihe little town. It was only eleven o’clock, yet the simple lives of the people left only -n occasional light to shine from the window of some sick room. The town was asleep now, but how it would talk in the morning! Four streets away stood a pair-horse van. s jit took us twenty-five miles before daylight, I nd suffice it to say that we got away with * rce monev.