A NIGHT PROWLER

Shannon News, 9 February 1926, Page 4

A NIGHT PROWLER

YOUNG SOJbIOX'i'UK’S ADVENTURE Looking up a lawyer is apt to be a cosily business. The truth of this has been brought home to a night prowler,' who is a loser in the financial sense, and is now engaged in licking his wounds, so as a result of a call he made on Tuesday evening at the homeof a young Christchurcn solicitor (says the "Hun”). Brilliantly, indeed, this lawyer upheld the reputation of his profession, even although the argument he put up was physical rather than oral. He appeared in the action he forced upon his reluctant caller in pyjamas and bare feet. The action occurred in the sweet after a swift chase. The solicitor resides in Papanui road and he was reading in bed when his wife whispered that a man had looked through the window,' Sure enough, he saw the shadow of a man outside. Slipping out of bed, the householder entered another room, which was in darkness and peered out ol the window. The man by ttye bedroom window went round a cornel* of the house,(and at the gate was another man, obviously a confederate. After glancing up and down the street the man outside came through the gate, and cautiously- moved across the lawn. He was carrying a bag—- - Time was ripe to enter an tion. In his bare feet and pyjamas the solicitor rushed out of the house and made for the man on the lawn. The intruder turned and bolted, grabbing a bicycle at the gate and pedalling desperately. Swift on his back wheel came the pursuer. The cyclist turned into May’s Road and the man behind trapped over a culvert, but overhauled the intruder. The cyclist, who jumped off his bicycle, proved to be thick-set, and pugnacious. "You are a ,” but never mind what he told the house- , holder, who made a suitable response.* A flurry of blows followed. The bicycle was between the two combatants fortunately for the solicitor whose -feet might otherwise have suffered. Then the prowler put his hand in his pocket. It looked as if he were drawing a weapon of some sort, and for the first time the solicitor thought of getting assistance. "Help!” he yelled. At the cry the man dropped both bag and bicycle, which he had held in ‘ the struggle and ran. , It was then that the solicitor found that a big toe was sprained, his feet were cut by stones, and a blow on the forearm had caused a stiffening of the muscles. He was in no shape to continue the chase, so he gathered up the spoils of war —a perfectly good bicycle and a bag—and returned to his residence. Within seven minutes of a telephone call the police were on the scene and an investigation showed that the man first noticed at the window apparently had escaped over the back fence, there being feet and other marks of his presenceThe sergeant in charge promised to call in the morning to collect the bicycle, and the police left. Now comes an illustration of the legal mind. '‘The owner may come back for that bicycle; he may pretend he is a policeman,” said the solicitor'as in the morning he bade his wife farewell before he departed for-business. be careful. He is a thick-set man.” An hour later, a thick-set man knocked at the door and asked the wife for the bicycle. "I think it is gone,” she said, and pretended to go to the back of the house to investigate. Then she returned surd iuforna-