Then, leaving the door
still half open, he came back into the middle of the room,
and ran his roving blue eye round its furniture and ornament.
The room was comfortably lined with books in that rich and human
way that makes the walls seem alive; it was a deep and full,
but slovenly, bookcase, of the sort that is constantly ransacked
for the purposes of reading in bed. One of those stunted
German stoves that look like red goblins stood in a corner,
and a sideboard of walnut wood with closed doors in its lower part.
There were three windows, high but narrow. After another glance round,
my housebreaker plucked the walnut doors open and rummaged inside.
He found nothing there, apparently, except an extremely
handsome cut-glass decanter, containing what looked like port.
Somehow the sight of the thief returning with this ridiculous little
luxury in his hand woke within me once more all the revelation
and revulsion I had felt above.
"`Don't do it!' I cried quite incoherently, `Santa Claus--'
"`Ah,' said the burglar, as he put the decanter on the table
and stood looking at me, `you've thought about that, too.'
"`I can't express a millionth part of what I've thought of,' I cried,
`but it's something like this.
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