The Stories of the Three Burglars

The Stories of the Three Burglars is credited to Frank R. Stockton. A householder says he lives in a pleasant country neighbourhood, about twenty miles from New York, and that the household does not live in a paradise but is occasionally troubled by mosquitoes and burglars. The householder says that after a consultation with a friend, who was a physician greatly interested in the study of narcotic drugs, he procured a mixture which was almost tasteless and without peculiar odour. The householder says he thought it a good scheme and determined to experiment with it and, if possible, to make a trap which should catch a burglar.

One teller recounts that Jerry jumps out of bed right at him, that Putty Henderson comes at him from the other side, and that between the two they gave him the worst lickin' he ever got in his born days. A narrator whose wife and Aunt Martha had gone upstairs before the arrival of the police says he glanced into the dining-room from the hallway and was surprised to see the young man still standing by a side door.