SECRE TI YEN ESS. 



105 



hour later all but the low snoring of my companion, 

 when a moving shadow attracted my attention to the 

 top of a high board fence, and there and then came 



RECONNOITRING. 



the thieves, 



two mountain-brook minks, that ap- 

 proached the hen-house with noise- 

 less steps and entered by an unsus- 

 pected aperture between the top of the board wall and 

 a loose shingle, the only loose shingle on the roof, as 

 was afterward ascertained by a thorough examination 

 of the building. The father of the Wagner-worshipping 

 monarch of Bavaria often diverted himself by suddenly 

 lighting the calcium-lamps of the Hof-park after a 

 public soiree champetre ; and if some nocturnal land- 



