Freddy Goes to Florida by Walter R. Brooks

other burglars were very much smaller men and so they didn’t dare say anything, although they looked very much discontented with their shares.
    Now the window through which the animals were looking was rather high up, as windows go, and although the two dogs and Freddy, the pig, could see in by putting their forepaws on the window-sill and stretching their necks, Jinx was too short, and he had to climb up and hang on by his claws. He didn’t mind this particularly, because his claws were sharp and strong, and he could have hung on like that for hours. But there was a big brown moth who was also trying to look in the window at what the burglars were doing, and it kept fluttering round on the pane right in front of Jinx’s nose, so that half the time he couldn’t see a thing.
    At first he spoke to it politely, and asked it if it wouldn’t please move up a little higher, where it could see just as well and wouldn’t be in his way.
    â€œMove up yourself!” growled the moth. “I was here first.”
    â€œOf course you were,” said Jinx patiently. “But you must realize that I can’t move up. And I should think common politeness——”
    â€œOh, shut up! ” said the moth.
    So Jinx didn’t say any more, but he made up his mind to give that moth a lesson. So he let go for a mniute with one forepaw, and made one slap at the moth and scooped it right off the window.
    But Robert, who was standing next to Jinx, was doing something that all dogs and a good many people do. When anything surprised or interested him very much, he opened his eyes very wide, and when his eyes opened, his mouth seemed to come open too. So he was standing with his mouth wide open staring at the burglars, and when Jinx hit the big brown moth with his paw, he knocked it straight down Robert’s throat.
    â€œArrrrrrgh!” said Robert. “Woof!”
    â€œWhat’s that!” said all the burglars at once, and they jumped up and bent over the table to blow out the lamp. But as they all bent over at exactly the same time, their three heads came together in the middle, crack! And then the light was out and the animals couldn’t see anything more, but they could hear the burglars rubbing their bumped heads and groaning.
    For quite a long while the animals waited for something to happen, but nothing did. The burglars were evidently badly scared. They seemed to be whispering together, and at last Jinx said: “I’m going in to see what they’re doing. I noticed when we came up to the house that the door was open a little way, and I think I can get in.”
    So he went round to the door, and sure enough it was open a crack, and he made himself narrow, as cats can, and slipped in. It was so dark inside that the burglars could not see anything at all, but Jinx could see them quite plainly. Cats can see in the dark. He jumped up on the mantelpiece to be out of the way, and sat down.
    The two small burglars, whose names were Ed and Bill, were in a corner, trying to open one of the dark lanterns, so they could light it. But as they never used the lanterns, but only carried them to show that they were burglars, they didn’t know how to open it. The big burglar, whose name was Percy, was standing by the table, on which were the three piles of stolen things that he had been dividing up, and he was feeling with his fingers in the other piles and taking out the biggest things and putting them on his own pile. But he couldn’t see what he was doing, and pretty soon he knocked a watch and an emerald necklace off on the floor.
    At the sound Ed and Bill started up. “What you doin’ over there, Percy?”Bill whispered hoarsely.
    And Ed said: “He’s after them jools.”
    â€œOh, I am not! ” said Percy. “I was just feeling for the matches.”
    â€œOh, you was, was you?” said Ed. “Well, you just come over here and give us a hand