Makes the Whole World Kin

                              By 

                           O. Henry
 
THE BURGLAR stepped inside the window quickly, and then he took his time. A 
burglar who respects his art always takes his time before taking anything else.
The house was a private residence.
By its boarded front door and untrimmed Boston ivy the burglar knew that the 
mistress of it was sitting on some oceanside piazza telling a sympathetic man in 
a yachting cap that no one had ever understood her sensitive lonely heart.
He knew by the light in the third-story front windows, and by the lateness of 
the season, that the master of the house had come home, and would soon 
extinguish his light and retire.
For it was September of the year and of the soul, in which season the house's 
good man comes to consider roof gardens and stenographers as vanities, and to 
desire the return of his mate and the more durable blessings of decorum. and the 
moral excellencies.
The burglar lighted a cigarette. The guarded glow of the match illuminated his 
salient points for a moment. He belonged to the third type of burglars.
This third type has not yet been recognized and accepted. The police have made 
us familiar with the first and second. Their classification is simple. The 
collar is the distinguishing mark.
When a burglar is caught who does not wear a collar he is described as a 
degenerate of the lowest type, singularly vicious and depraved, and is suspected 
of being the desperate criminal who stole the handcuffs out of Patrolman 
Hennessy's pocket in 1878 and walked away to escape arrest.
 
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The other well-known type is the burglar who wears a collar. He is always 
referred to as a Raffles in real life. He is invariably a gentleman by daylight, 
breakfasting in a dress suit, and posing as a paperhanger, while after dark be 
plies his nefarious occupation of burglary.
His mother is an extremely wealthy and respected resident of Ocean Grove and 
when he is conducted to his cell he asks at once for a nail file and the Police 
Gazette.
He always has a wife in every State in the Union and fiancees in all the 
Territories, and the newspapers print his matrimonial gallery out of their stock 
of cuts of the ladies who were cured by only one bottle after having been given 
up by five doctors, experiencing great relief after the first dose.
The burglar wore a blue sweater. He was neither a Raffles nor one of the chefs 
from Hell's Kitchen. The police would have been baffled had they attempted to 
classify him. They have not yet heard of the respectable, unassuming burglar who 
is neither above nor below his station.
This burglar of the third class began to prowl. He wore no masks, dark lanterns, 
or gum shoes. He carried a 38-calibre revolve in his pocket, and he chewed 
peppermint gum thoughtfully.
The furniture of the house was swathed in its summer dust protectors. The silver 
was far away in safe-deposit vaults. The burglar expected no remarkable "haul." 
His objective point was that dimly lighted room where the master of the house 
should be sleeping heavily after whatever solace he had sought to lighten the 
burden of his loneliness.
A "touch" might be made there to the extent of legitimate, fair professional 
profits-loose money, a watch, a jeweled stick-pin-nothing exorbitant or beyond 
reason.
He had seen the window left open and had taken the chance.
The burglar softly opened the door of the lighted room. The gas was turned low. 
A man lay in the bed asleep. On the dresser lay many things in confusion 
crumpled roll of bills, a watch, keys, three poker chips, crushed cigars, a pink 
silk hair bow, and an unopened bottle of bromo-seltzer for a bulwark in the 
morning.
The burglar took three steps toward the dresser.
 
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The man in the bed suddenly uttered a squeaky groan and opened his eyes.
His right hand slid under his pillow, but remained there.
`Lay still," said the burglar in conversational tone. Burglars of the third type 
do not hiss.
The citizen in the bed looked at the round end of the burglar's pistol and lay 
still.
"Now hold up both your hands," commanded the burglar.
The citizen had a little, pointed, brown-and-gray beard, like that of a painless 
dentist. He looked solid, esteemed, irritable, and disgusted. He sat up in bed 
and raised his right hand above his head.
"Up with the other one," ordered the burglar. `You might be amphibious and shoot 
with your left. You can count two, can't you? Hurry up, now.
"Can't raise the other one," said the citizen with a contortion of his 
lineaments.
What's the matter with it?"
"Rheumatism in the shoulder."
"Inflammatory?"
"Was. The inflammation has gone down."
The burglar stood for a moment or two, holding his gun on the afflicted one. He 
glanced at the plunder on the dresser and then, with a half-embarrassed air back 
at the man in the bed. Then he, too, made a sudden grimace.
"Don't stand there making faces," snapped the citizen, bad-humoredly. "If you've 
come to burgle why don't you do it? There's some stuff lying around."
"`Scuse me," said the burglar, with a grin; "but it just socked me one, too. Its 
good for you that rheumatism and me happens to be old pals. I got it in my left 
arm, too. Most anybody but mewould have popped you when you wouldn't hoist that 
left claw of yours.
"How long have you had it?" inquired the citizen.
"Four years. I guess that ain't all. Once you've got it, it's yours for a 
rheumatic life-that's my judgment."
"Ever try rattlesnake oil?" asked the citizen interestedly.
 
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"Gallons," said the burglar. "If all the snakes I've used the oil of was strung 
out in a row they'd reach eight times as far as Saturn, and the rattles could be 
heard at Valparaiso, Indiana, and back."
"Some use Chiselum's Pills," remarked the citizen.
"Fudge!" said the burglar. "Took `em five months. No good. I had some relief the 
year I tried Finkelham's Extract, Balm of Gilead poultices, and Pott's Pain 
Pulverizer; but I think it was the buckeye I carried in my pocket what done the 
trick."
"Is yours worse in the morning or at night?" asked the citizen.
"Night," said the burglar; "just when I'm busiest. Say, take down that arm of 
yours-I guess you won't- Say! did you ever try Bickerstaff's Blood Builder?"
"I never did. Does yours come in paroxysms or is it a steady pain?"
The burglar sat down on the foot of the bed and rested his gun on his crossed 
knee.
"It jumps," said he. "It strikes me when I ain't looking for it. I had to give 
up second-story work because I got stuck sometimes half-way up. Tell you what-I 
don't believe the bloomin' doctors know what is good for it."
"Same here. I've spent a thousand dollars without getting any relief. Yours 
swell any?"
"Of mornings. And when it's goin' to rain-great Christopher!"
"Me, too," said the citizen. "I can tell when a streak of humidity the size of a 
tablecloth starts from Florida on its way to New York. And if I pass a theatre 
where there's an `East Lynne' matinee going on, the moisture starts my left arm 
jumping like a tooth-ache."
"It's undiluted-Hades" said the burglar.
`You're dead right," said the citizen.
The burglar looked down at his pistol and thrust it into his pocket with an 
awkward attempt at ease,
"Say, old man," he said, constrainedly, "ever try opodeldoc?"
"Slop!" said the citizen angrily. "Might as well rub on restaurant butter."
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"Sure," concurred the burglar. "It's a salve suitable for little Minnie when the 
kitty scratches her finger. I'll tell you what! We're up against it. I only find 
one thing that eases her up. Hey? Little old sanitary, ameliorating, 
lest-we-forget Booze. Say-this job's off-'scuse me-get on your clothes and let's 
go out and have some. `Scuse the liberty, but-ouch! There she goes again!"
"For a week," said the citizen, "I haven't been able to dress myself without 
help. I'm afraid Thomas is in bed, and-"
"Climb out"' said the burglar, "I'll help you get into your duds."
The conventional returned as a tidal wave and flooded the citizen. He stroked 
his brown-and-gray beard.
"It's very unusual~" he began.
"Here's your shirt," said the burglar, "Climb out. I know a man who said 
Omberry's Ointment fixed him in two weeks so he could use both hands in tying 
his four-in-hand."
As they were going Out the door the citizen turned and started back.
"`Liked to forgot my money," he explained; "laid it on the dresser last night."
The burglar caught him by the right sleeve. "Come on," he said, bluffly. "I ask 
you. Leave it alone. I've got the price. Ever try witch hazel and oil of 
wintergreen?"