nths. 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 been found duly barred and bolted in the
morning, and yet we let them assume that we came out that way. Nab
would have pounced on the point, and by this time we might have been
nabbed ourselves."

It was but a little over a hundred sovereigns that Raffles had taken,
and, of course, he had resolutely eschewed any and every form of paper
money. He posted his own first contribution of twenty-five pounds to
the Founder's Fund immediately on our return to town, before rushing
off to more first-class cricket, and I gathered that the rest would
follow piecemeal as he deemed it safe. By an odd coincidence, however,
a mysterious but magnificent donation of a hundred guineas was almost
simultaneously received in notes by the treasurer of the Founder's
Fund, from one who simply signed himself "Old Boy." The treasurer