He asked a few questions as to exits and entrances and fixed in his mind a
very accurate picture of the home of her father. She then proceeded to
enlighten him as to the ways and means of entering the home of her
father-in-law, which she sketched with equal facility.

"There's a French window--a narrow glass door--on the veranda. I think you
might get in _there!_" She made a jab with the pencil. "Of course I should
hate awfully to have you get caught! But you must have had a lot of
experience, and with all the help I'm giving you--!"

A sudden lifting of her head gave him the full benefit of her eyes and he
averted his gaze reverently.

"There's always a chance o' bein' nabbed, miss," he suggested with
feeling.

Shaver's mother wielded the same hypnotic power, highly intensified, that
he had felt in Shaver. He knew that he was going to attempt what she
asked; that he was committed to the project of robbing two houses merely
to please a pretty young woman who invited his coöperation at the point of
a revolver!

"Papa's always a sound sleeper," she was saying. "When I was a little girl
a burglar went all through our house and carried off his clothes and he
never knew it until the next morning. But you'll have to be careful at Mr.
Talbot's, for he suffers horribly from insomnia."

"They got any o' them fancy burglar alarms?" asked The Hopper as he
concluded his examination of her sketches.