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"Speaking of watchdogs, " said the retired burglar, "I never owned a watchdog, but I did once own a jolly little niongrel dog that we calied sometimes Nibs, bnt tnosrly Nibsy, a lively, sensitive little fellow, but no watchdog. Yon might have played a. brass band ontside, and he'd never hear it, but let anyborly tliat he knew walk across the floor, and he'd wag his tail in his sleep. "Well, after we'd had Nibsy a num!■' 'f yearswe lost him. He justdisap! one day and didn't come back, and we didn't know whether he'd been run over by a train of cars or strayed away and got lost, or whether somebody had picked him up and carried him off, or what was the matter, but he didn't come back, and we missed hira very much becanse we all liked Nibsy. "Now, maybe you can guess what happened. One morning early, about 2 or half past 2, some months after tbat, as I was moving slowly in the dark across a room on the second floor of a house that I had called at some 50 miles froni where I lived, I feit the legs of a small dog thrown against mine. I couldn't see the dog at all, but it was standing on its hind legs and resting its fore legs against me, and I could teil by the ruovement of them that he was wagging his tail violeutly. It vas Nibsy, of course. He'd known my tread, soft as it was, and woke up to receive me. "Well, yon know, glad as I was to find Nibsy, I'd rather not have fonnd him right there, becanse he was almost certain to make trouble for me. He began to whine with joy the first thing, and then he gave a little yelp. That was just what I was afraid of. He didn't want to make auy trouble for me, hut that one yelp was enough. A man in the bed sits up and pulls a striug and turns on a light and says: " 'Now, wbat's the matter?' "And I puts up a great polar bluff and says, 'You swipedmy dog, and I've come to get him. ' " 'Swiped nothing, ' he says. 'I'll swipe you in a minute,' and he wasn't slow in getting at it either. He was getting out of bed and coming for me all the time he was talking, and a good healthy, powerful looking man he was too. But Nibsy was brigbt. Nibsy made just one dive at the man 's f eet, but that was enough to stop him until I'd got turned and started, and a minute later I was going down the road, with