Part 5
WITH INTENT TO STEAL
To sleep in a lonely barn when the best bedrooms in the house
were at our disposal, seemed, to say the least, unnecessary, and I
felt that some explanation was due to our host.
But Shorthouse, I soon discovered, had seen to all that; our
enterprise would be tolerated, not welcomed, for the master kept
this sort of thing down with a firm hand. And then, how little I
could get this man, Shorthouse, to tell me. There was much I wanted
to ask and hear, but he surrounded himself with impossible
barriers. It was ludicrous; he was surely asking a good deal of me,
and yet he would give so little in return, and his reason—that it
was for my good—may have been perfectly true, but did not bring me
any comfort in its train. He gave me sops now and then, however
