me for a stroll on the practice ground, where, however, we found two
chairs aloof from the fascinating throng.

"I am not often sorry, Bunny, as you know," he began. "But I have been
sorry since the interval. I've been sorry for poor old Nipper Nasmyth.
Did you see the idea of being popular dawn upon him for the first time
in his life?"

"I did; but you had nothing to do with that, my dear man."

Raffles shook his head over me as our eyes met.

"I had everything to do with it. I tried to make him tell the meanest
lie. I made sure he would, and for that matter he nearly did. Then, at
the last moment, he saw how to hedge things with his conscience. And
his second hundred will be a real gift."

"You mean under his own name?"

"And with his own free-will. My good Bunny, is it possible you don't
know what I did with the hundred we drew from that bank!"

"I knew what you were going to do with it," said I. "I didn't know you
had actually got further than the twenty-five you told me you were
sending as your own contribution."

Raffles rose abruptly from his chair.

"And you actually thought that came out of his money?"

"Naturally."

"In my name?"

"I thought so."

Raffles stared at me inscrutably for some moments, and for some more
at the great white numbers over the grand-stand.

"We may as well have another look at the cricket," said he. "It's
difficult to see the board from here, but I believe there's another
man out."

A Bad Night

There was to be a certain little wedding in which Raffles and I took a
surreptitious interest. The bride-elect was living in some retirement,
with a recently widowed mother and an asthmatical brother, in a mellow
hermitage on the banks of the Mole. The bridegroom was a prosperous
son of the same suburban soil which had nourished both families for
generations. The wedding presents were so numerous as to fill several
rooms at the pretty retreat upon the Mole, and of an intrinsic value
calling for a special transaction with the Burglary Insurance Company
in Cheapside. I cannot say how Raffles obtained all this information.
I only know that it proved correct in each particular. I was not
indeed deeply interested before the event, since Raffles assured me
that it was "a one-man job," and naturally intended to be the one man
himself. It was only at the eleventh hour that our positions were
inverted by the wholly unexpected selection of Raffles for the English
team in the