I am Phil Morris, fourteen years old, and the youngest clerk in Covert Savings-Bank. The cashier is my uncle Jack, and he began at the bottom, where I am, when he was a boy. He says that a boy had better grow up with a country bank than go West and grow up with the country. He thinks there's more money in it.

"If there's anything in you," he said one day, "you'll work your way up to be bank president some time." And I guess it's better to be president of a country bank than to be President of the United States. Anyway, you wouldn't have to be shot before folks began to find out that you were doing your level best to keep things straight. Uncle Jack says and does such queer things sometimes that people say he's odd. They tell about his being so wrapped up in our bank that he never had time to hunt up a wife. I notice, though, that when father and mother died, and left me a wee little baby, Uncle Jack found time to bring me up, and give me a good education to boot. Oh, he's as good as gold or government bonds, Uncle Jack is.

We live in rooms over the bank, where old Mrs. Halstead keeps house for us. Underneath, we do the business. There's heaps of money in our two big vaults.

Last summer—and, mind you, this was while I was away on vacation—two men broke into the building. They came up stairs, and into Uncle Jack's room. One had a bull's-eye lantern that he flashed in Uncle Jack's face as he sat up in bed, and the other pointed a big pistol right at his head.

"Tell us where the vault keys are, or I'll shoot you," he said.

"Oh, Uncle Jack," I broke in, when he was telling me about it, "what did you do?"

"What would you have done?" he asked, in his odd way.

"I know what I wouldn't have done," I answered him, straightening up a bit—"I wouldn't have given 'em the keys."

"Ah!" Uncle Jack says, kind of half doubtful, and then went on: "Well, I told them to shoot away. And they knew as well as I did that shooting wouldn't bring them the keys. So when they found they couldn't frighten me, the scoundrels tied me, and went off in a rage, with my watch and pocket-book."

That was last summer. One night along in the fall Uncle Jack started off down town. "It's Lodge night, and I may not be back until late," he said. "You won't mind staying alone—a great boy like you." And of course I said "No."

But somehow, after Mrs. Halstead went to bed, I found I did mind it. I don't know what made me feel so fidgety. Perhaps it was reading about a bank robbery in Bolton, which is the next town to Covert. It was thought to be the work of Slippery Jim, a notorious burglar. And while I was thinking about it, I dozed off in Uncle Jack's easy-chair.

"Ow-w-w!" I sung out all at once. And if you'd woke up of a sudden to see a rough-looking man, with a slouch hat pulled over his eyes, standing right in front of you, you'd have done the same. "What—what do you want here?" I sort of gasped; and I tried to speak so he wouldn't hear my teeth knock together.

"The vault keys—where are they?" he answers, short and gruff. And then he kind of motioned with his hand—I suppose to show the revolver he was holding.

I was pretty badly scared; but all the same, I didn't mean he should have those vault keys, if he shot the top of my head off.

"Come, hurry up," he said, with a sort of grin. And I noticed then that he had red whiskers, and some of his upper front teeth were gone, so that he didn't speak his words plain.

"I should know you anywhere," I thought. "Strategy, Phil Morris," I said to myself, bracing up inside; for a story I'd read about how a lady caught a live burglar came across me like a flash. "Please don't shoot, sir," I began to say, with all sorts of demi-semi-quavers in my voice—"please don't; indeed I'll show you where they're kept." So making believe to shake all over, I took the lamp, and led the way into Uncle Jack's bedroom. "The k-k-k-eys are in th-there, sir," I told him.

You should have seen how my fingers trembled when I pointed to the little store-room that opened out of the chamber. The keys were there, true enough, but I'd like to see any one except Uncle Jack or I find them. I suppose you have heard of such things as secret panels.

The store-room floor is lower than the chamber floor. Many a time, when I haven't been thinking, I've stepped down with a jar that almost sent my backbone up through the top of my head.

"In there, eh?" said my bold burglar, quite cheerful like, and pushed by me to the open door.

I set the lamp down, and my heart began to beat so that I was almost afraid he could hear it. "Now or never," I whispered.

It was all done quicker than you could say "knife." I put my head down like a billy-goat, and ran for the small of his back. "Butted" isn't a nice word, but that's just how I sent him flying headlong into the closet. I heard him go down with a crash that shook Mrs. Halstead's biggest jar of raspberry jam off the shelf.

I didn't stop to take breath until I'd locked the door and barricaded it with Uncle Jack's big mahogany bureau—just as the lady did in the story. Then I breathed—and listened. What I heard made my eyes stick out a bit. First I almost felt like crying. Then I laughed until I did cry. I suppose the excitement made me hystericky. It wasn't ten minutes before I roused up Mr. Simms the constable, and Jared Peters, who lives next door. Mr. Simms brought along an old pepperbox revolver and a pair of handcuffs. Jared Peters had his double-barrel gun, but in his flurry he forgot to load it.

Up stairs we hurried. The two men pulled away the bureau, and Mr. Simms, who was in the army, stationed us in our places.

"Look a-here, you feller," Mr. Simms called out, "the strong arm of the law is a-coverin' of you with deadly weepons. Surrender without resistance.—Phil, yank open the door."

I flung open the door. Jared Peters covered the prisoner with his gun. He was covered with something else too—Mrs. Halstead's raspberry jam, that he'd been wallowing round in. He didn't look proud, though, for all he was so stuck up.

Before he could open his mouth Mr. Simms had him handcuffed and dragged out into the chamber.

"There," he said, with a long breath, "I guess you won't burgle no more right away."

"For goodness' sake, Simms—Peters—don't you know me—Mr. John Morris, cashier of the savings bank." That was what the prisoner said just as soon as he could speak.

Well, I didn't wait any longer. I just bolted for my own room, where I could lie down on the floor. And there I lay laughing until I was purple clear round to my shoulder-blades. Then I went to bed.

"Philip," said Uncle Jack, solemnly, while we were at breakfast next morning, "I should beg your pardon for trying to test your courage in the—the consummately idiotic way I took to do it last night, but"—and he looked pretty sheepish—"I—I think I got the worst of it."

"I think you did, sir," I answered him, choking a bit.

"The disguise was a good one, though," he went on, with a sort of feeble chuckle, "and leaving my false teeth out, changed my voice completely—eh, Phil?"

"Yes, sir—until you hollered out in the closet that it was all a joke, and wanted me to let you out," I answered him, as I got up and edged toward the door.

"Why didn't you let me out then?" roared Uncle Jack, who is rather quick-tempered.

I hope I wasn't impudent. Truly, I didn't intend to be. "Because, Uncle Jack," I said, as I turned the door knob, "I have heard you say more than once that he who can not take a joke should not make one." And as I dodged through the door I heard Uncle Jack groan.