Tuxedo Park is unique—in America. It is what may be called the American San Marino. Like San Marino, it is set apart in a holy seclusion far from the madding crowd; also like San Marino it is a wee little miniature republic, with an excellent system of government of its own devising. I think that in territory it is about the twin of San Marino. [begin page 55] If I remember rightly, San Marino’s territorial spread covers thirty-six square miles of the planet, and I believe the Tuxedo Park State covers just about the same amount of soil. By these statistics the reader will perceive that San Marino is no longer the smallest independent State in the world, but only one of the smallest.

There is a village of Tuxedo, and it is not new, but Tuxedo Park is not more than a quarter of a century oldⒺexplanatory note, and has no connection with the village. Tuxedo Park is ideally situated. It is only an hour from New York City by rail. Coming from New York the train flies through a level of flats and marshes for thirty or forty minutes, then comes suddenly upon a barrier of high and rocky and forest-clad hills, and plunges into the heart of this barrier; it climbs up through a beautiful gorge—the whole of which gorge is a part of the sovereignty of Tuxedo Park—and arrives at Tuxedo village station; thence you drive through a massive and towered granite gateway and enter the sacred ground—that is if the uniformed guards on sentry duty at the gateway are satisfied with your credentials, and are convinced that you are honest, and are on an honest errand; otherwise you will not get in. You ascend gradually, by winding and perfect roads, past fine and widely separated villas and private gardens, and the further you climb the more beautiful are the views that enchant your eyes; you look down upon a pair of lakes framed in the embrace of the lovely hills, upon whose surfaces the clouds and the forests and the scattered villas paint pictures of themselves in the softest and tenderest colors.

The whole population of the State is concentrated upon the hillsides around and about these lakes, and between the first villa of the processional seriesⒶtextual note and the furthest one the distance is not more than three miles. The surrounding territory was bought by the corporation, not for use but merely to keep undesirable people out. The whole population of the miniature republic probably does not exceed fifty families, with an average ofⒶtextual note four members and five servants to the family. If you live in Tuxedo Park America takes it for granted that you are rich, it not being regarded as possible for a moderate income to survive there.

It is a pleasant place to live in; substantially the population is a club; it has a large and well conducted club houseⒶtextual note, and all the families are entitled to its privileges by right of residence. However, this right has a limit, in the case of a newcomer; if he rents, or buys, or builds, a house, he is a member of the club during that year without an election; but the community will take a vote upon him when the year is out, and if he has provenⒶtextual note unsatisfactory they blackball him and close the club against him; he finds himself isolated and uncomfortable, and presently removes to some other place. In the course of the years eighteen newcomers have been blackballed, and have retired from the Park.

The Park’s neatly uniformed policemen are on duty along the Park roads night and day, but as it is claimed that no tramp or burglar, or peddler, or beggar, or gambler, or improper lady, or any other undesirable person, can get by the guards at the granite gateway, the police have nothing to do but walk around and keep awake. It is held that locks and bolts and window-catches are not needed in the Park, and that you need not be afraid to let your doors and windows stand open night and day. If noises disturb you you telephone Captain BushⒺexplanatory note, and he squelches them. No noise has interrupted the dead [begin page 56] stillness of my nights except in one instance: on the other side of the lake there was a remote dog with a deep voice, who complained all night long about something or other, and out of compassion for his troubles I lay awake and sympathized with him; but when I found that there was one concentration of power and authority who could comfort him and quiet him with a word, and that that concentration was Captain Bush, we applied to him by telephone and he conferred a sudden dumbness upon that dog which has lasted until now.

Apparently this is my season for high distinctions: Oxford the other day, and now a burglar—the first burglar that has ever been heard of in Tuxedo Park since the beginning of its existence. He entered the house at one o’clock this morning, and went all over it at his leisure, examining every room in it, at his leisure, by the light of a candle, and marking his route everywhere with candle drippings. He was in every room but mine; my bath-roomⒶtextual note door was wide open, and he stood in it and dripped candle-grease, but he came no further, or if he did, he dripped no grease; there were bank-bills on my night table, and a handful of silver; he did not touch them. At half pastⒶtextual note one he entered the cook’s room, and she rose up and asked him what he wanted; he did not answer, but fled. I could have told her you can’t get information out of a burglar by asking for it. I have had experience of burglars, and know all about them, but the cook is young and inexperienced; she called to Nellie, one of the maids, and that fetched both maids; they heard the burglar running, and heard him leave the house by the front door; three hours and a half later they got up in a body and examined the house all over, finding candle drippingsⒶtextual note everywhere, but not an asset missing—not a thing missing except three rolls which were to have been my breakfast, and whose loss reduced me to corn bread for that meal.Ⓐtextual note At five o’clock I got up to fill a pipe, and I saw a policeman passing by my part of the house. The front door was standing wide open, but he probably attached no significance to that, as it is religion and tradition, here, that there are no burglars, and that a door is doing just as well when it is open as when it is closed. He gave the open door no attention, but passed by, like the Gentile, on the other side—if it was the Gentile; I think it was the Gentile; anyway I know it was either the Gentile or the ShunammiteⒶtextual note, or the good SamaritanⒺexplanatory note; I am rusty in these things, but it is no matter; he passed by not on the other side, but on our side. It was a few minutes afterward that the servants examined the house. They found an extinguished candle on the floor close to the threshold of the open door; they found my overcoat-closetⒶtextual note standing open and candle drippings on its floor, but no overcoats gone; they found the row of pictures on the staircase wall twisted askew—suggesting that the burglar was drunk, because a sober man would find plenty of room without crowding the pictures—and they found nothing missing except those three rolls. Now then, I come to something which hurts my feelings. On the table in the front hall were two boxes of my cigars—cost four cents apiece;Ⓐtextual note one of them stood open, and six cigars of the top row were gone. When the three girls invaded my room at a quarter to six, with their great news of the burglary, and assured me that not a single asset was gone except the three rolls and six cigars, I felt a mingled thrill of gratitude and pride, for at last I seemed to have found somebody magnanimous enough to be willing [begin page 57] to risk my kind of smokes; but the thrill did not last, it wavered off into doubt and then disappeared in a pang of disappointment and humiliation, for I remembered that it was I that had removed those six cigars.

We telephoned for Captain Bush, and he came and made a thorough examination; then reported to me. He said that that burglar was evidently an amateur, not a professional; also, it was his belief that this visitor was not a burglar at all, and had never intended to steal anything, but was some one who had a grudge against the owner of this house and made his visit merely out of revenge. Captain Bush had an idea that this amateur was most probably some former manservant who had been discharged by the owner of this house. I didn’t say anything, but I had a quite different idea about the matter, and I have it yet. I think that my visitor was some young society gentleman; that his elaborate visitation was a joke, and that his purpose was to put a sarcasm upon the police and the community, a satire upon the Park’s vaunted immunity from the visits of tramps and burglars. I think he will consider that his joke was successful beyond his utmost hopes, when he learns that the guardian of the night went by the wide open door at five in the morning and did not see it. Privately, I expect to get those missing rolls back, with a courteous letter of explanation.