This morning I flew to Rochester, where I had lunch with a friend at Edibles.
He gave me a copy of “The Best Short Stories of Mark Twain”.
On the plane back I read the story “The McWilliamses and the Burglar Alarm”: “It was at this unprotected time that the heaviest calamity of all happened. The burglars walked in one night and carried off the burglar alarm! Yes sir, every hide and hair of it; ripped it out, tooth and toe-nail; springs, bells, gongs, battery, and all; the took a hundred and fifty miles of copper wire; they just cleaned her out, bag and baggage, and never left us a vestige of her to swear at – swear by, I mean.”

What a marvelous story.

(Read the story here.)