past under our
noses, and that's where we took up the chase. Where he'd been in the
meantime I have no idea; very likely he'd done no harm; but it seemed
worth while finding out. He had too good a start, though, and poor
Bunny had too bad a wind."

"You should have gone on and let me rip," said I, climbing to my feet
at last.

"As it is, however, we will all let the other fellow do so," said old
Nab in a genial growl. "And you two had better turn into my house and
have something to keep the morning cold out."

You may imagine with what alacrity we complied; and yet I am bound to
confess that I had never liked Nab at school. I still remember my term
in his form. He had a caustic tongue and fine assortment of damaging
epithets, most of which were levelled at my devoted skull during those
three months. I now discovered that he also kept a particularly mellow
Scotch whiskey, an excellent cigar, and a fund of anecdote of which a
mordant wit was the worthy bursar. Enough to add that he kept us
laughing in his study until the chapel bells rang him out.

As for Raffles, he appeared to me to feel far more compunction for the
fable which he had been compelled to foist upon one of the old masters
than for the immeasurably graver offence against society and another
Old Boy. This, indeed, did not worry him at all; and the story was
received next day with absolute credulity on all sides. Nasmyth
himself was the first to thank us both for our spirited effort on his
behalf; and the incident had the ironic effect of establishing an
immediate entente cordiale between Raffles and his very latest victim.
I must confess, however, that for my own part I was thoroughly uneasy
during the Old Boys' second innings, when Raffles made a selfish score,
instead of standing by me to tell his own story in his own way. There
was never any knowing with what new detail he was about to embellish
it: and I have still to receive full credit for the tact that it
required to follow his erratic lead convincingly. Seldom have I been
more thankful than when our train started next morning, and the poor,
unsuspecting Nasmyth himself waved us a last farewell from the platform.

"Lucky we weren't staying at Nab's," said Raffles, as he lit a Sullivan
and opened his Daily Mail at its report of the robbery. "There was one
thing Nab would have spotted like the downy old bird he always was and
will be."

"What was that?"

"The front door must have be