d of finance, and as far as the moral side of the two men was considered
respectively, I felt tolerably confident that the Recording Angel's account-
books would show a larger balance on the right side to the credit of Raffles
than to that of his more famous contemporary. Hence it was that I decided
the question in my friend's favor, and a week or two later had him in at
"The Heraclean" for luncheon. The dining-room was filled with the usual
assortment of interesting men--men who had really done something in life and
who suffered from none of that selfish modesty which leads some of us to
hide our light under the bushel of silence. There was the Honorable Poultry
Tickletoe, the historian, whose articles on the shoddy quality of the modern
Panama hat have created such a stir throughout the hat trade; Mr. William
Darlington Ponkapog, the poet, whose epic on the "Reign of Gold" is one of
the longest, and some writers say the thickest, in the English language;
James Whistleton Potts, the eminent portraitist, whose limnings of his
patients have won him a high place among the caricaturists of the age,
Robert Dozyphrase, the expatriated American novelist, now of London, whose
latest volume of sketches, entitled _Intricacies_, has been equally the
delight of his followers and the despair of students of the occult; and,
what is more to the purpose of our story, Major-General Carrington Cox,
U.S.A., retired. These gentlemen, with others of equal distinction whom I
have not the space to name, were discussing with some degree of simultaneity
their own achievements in the various fields of endeavor to which their
lives had been devoted. They occupied the large centre-table which has for
many a year been the point of contact for the distinguished minds of which
the membership of "The Heraclean" is made up; the tennis-net, as it were,
over which the verbal balls of discussion have for so many years volleyed to
the delight of countless listeners.

Raffles and I sat apart at one of the smaller tables by the window, where we
could hear as much of the conversation at the larger board as we wished--so
many members of "The Heraclean" are deaf that to talk loud has become quite
de rigueur there--and at the same time hold converse with each other in
tones best suited to the confidential quality of our communications. We had
enjoyed the first two courses of our repast when we became aware that
General Carrington Cox had succeeded in getting to th