You are on one knee beside his pillow. You lay a gun on the floor within easy reach. If he wakes up on you that’s his bad luck; you’ll stick him up, take his money, and lock him in his room. He is lying on his side facing you and not eighteen inches away. You can feel his breath against your face. You pull up your right coat and shirt sleeves to the elbow, your left hand lifts the outer end of the pillow ever so little while your right, palm down, slowly, carefully, worms its way beneath his head. Your ear notes his breathing. So long as it is regular, he is asleep; if it breaks off he is waking up. While he sleeps he has no more control over his breathing than over his heartbeats, and you can plainly hear it, and when you cannot hear it you know he is awake. With your ear alert for the danger signal and your hand under his pillow your mind is racing all over the universe.

“No wonder,” you think, “they hang men in some parts of the world for this kind of burglary⁠—going into a man’s sleeping room with a gun and taking his property from under his head while he sleeps. No wonder your hair is graying above your ears, and wrinkles showing up in your forehead.”

You make up your mind to quit this racket⁠—it’s too tough⁠—but your hand goes further under the pillow. Careful as you are, the slight movement beneath his head seems to disturb this catlike sleeper. His breathing catches, halts, and no longer reaches your ear. You become petrified, your mind on the gun beside you. With a jerky movement he turns over, and you wait till he goes sound asleep again.

His back is to you now, and his head on the farther end of his pillow. This makes it easier. You explore and explore, but feel nothing. Slowly you withdraw your arm. You must look farther; in his shoes, his hat, the dresser drawers, the clothes closet, and, that failing, you will put the gun on him, wake him, and make him dig it up. You have been there almost two hours. It will soon be dawn; you must hurry. You search everywhere, but no bankroll. You go around the bed and your arm is quickly thrust under the other pillow in the last hope of finding it. It’s not there; no use looking farther. You decide to wake him and demand it.