Horace Danby collects rare books, and finances his hobby by safe-breaking. One day he is surprised in mid-burglary by the lady of the house, but she seems prepared to let him go in return for a small favour.

I discovered this story in a simplified version in two school anthologies, one published in the USA and one in India, since when there has also been one published in Russia. Eventually I tracked down earlier publications in the American newspaper supplement This Week, and in the Scottish magazine, Chambers's Journal, Canning's only contribution to it as far as I know. It was broadcast as a TV play in the USA by CBS in June 1953 in a series called Your Jeweler's Showcase, I presume sponsored by a jewellery chain.

Chambers's Journal, March, 1953, p. 185-187.

This Week, exact date unkown.

Reprinted in This Week's short-short stories, ed. Stewart Beach, New York, Random House, 1953.

Included in Twisted Tales. Collier Macmillan, New York, 1964.

Included in Footprints without Feet, supplementary Reader in English for Class X. National Council of Educational Research and Training, New Delhi, 2007.

Included in Bocharova and Stepanova, Easy Reading Selections in English. Flinta-Naika, Moscow, 2012.