aliated after the live letter of the Mosaic law.
There was one bristling broadside of revolvers under the longest shelf
of closed eyes and swollen throats. There were festoons of
rope-ladders--none so ingenious as ours--and then at last there was
something that the clerk knew all about. It was a small tin
cigarette-box, and the name upon the gaudy wrapper was not the name of
Sullivan. Yet Raffles and I knew even more about this exhibit than the
clerk.

"There, now," said our guide, "you'll never guess the history of that!
I'll give you twenty guesses, and the twentieth will be no nearer than
the first."

"I'm sure of it, my good fellow," rejoined Raffles, a discreet twinkle
in his eye. "Tell us about it, to save time."

And he opened, as he spoke, his own old twenty-five tin of purely
popular cigarettes; there were a few in it still, but between the
cigarettes were jammed lumps of sugar wadded with cotton-wool. I saw
Raffles weighing the lot in his hand with subtle satisfaction. But the
clerk saw merely the mystification which he desired to create.

"I thought that'd beat you, sir," said he. "It was an American dodge.
Two smart Yankees got a jeweller to take a lot of stuff to a private
room at Keliner's, where they were dining, for them to choose from.
When it came to paying, there was some bother about a remittance; but
they soon made that all right, for they were far too clever to suggest
taking away what they'd chosen but couldn't pay for. No, all they
wanted was that what they'd chosen might be locked up in the safe and
considered theirs until their money came for them to pay for it. All
they asked was to seal the stuff up in something; the jeweller was to
take it away and not meddle with it, nor yet break the seals, for a
week or two. It seemed a fair enough thing, now, didn't it, sir?"

"Eminently fair," said Raffles sententiously.

"So the jeweller thought," crowed the clerk. "You see, it wasn't as if
the Yanks had chosen out the half of what he'd brought on appro.;
they'd gone slow on purpose, and they'd paid for all they could on the
nail, just for a blind. Well, I suppose you can guess what happened in
the end? The jeweller never heard of those Americans again; and these
few cigarettes and lumps of sugar were all he found."

"Duplicate boxes? I cried, perhaps a thought too promptly.

"Duplicate boxes!" murmured Raffles, as profoundly impressed as a
second Mr. Pickwick.

"Duplicate boxes!"