cricketer for me, sir; by Jove,
we must have another drink in his honor! Funny thing, asthma; your
liquor affects your head no more than it does a man with a snake-bite;
but it eases everything else, and sees you through. Doctors will tell
you so, but you've got to ask 'em first; they're no good for asthma!
I've only known one who could stop an attack, and he knocked me
sideways with nitrite of amyl. Funny complaint in other ways; raises
your spirits, if anything. You can't look beyond the next breath.
Nothing else worries you. Well, well, here's luck to A. J. Raffles,
and may he get his century in the morning!"

And he struggled to his feet for the toast; but I drank it sitting
down. I felt unreasonably wroth with Raffles, for coming into the
conversation as he had done--for taking centuries in Test Matches as
he was doing, without bothering his head about me. A failure would
have been in better taste; it would have shown at least some
imagination, some anxiety on one's account. I did not reflect that
even Raffles could scarcely be expected to picture me in my cups with
the son of the house that I had come to rob; chatting with him,
ministering to him; admiring his cheery courage, and honestly
attempting to lighten his load! Truly it was an infernal position:
how could I rob him or his after this? And yet I had thrust myself
into it; and Raffles would never, never understand!

Even that was not the worst. I was not quite sure that young Medlicott
was sure of me. I had feared this from the beginning, and now (over
the second glass that could not possibly affect a man in his
condition) he practically admitted as much to me. Asthma was such a
funny thing (he insisted) that it would not worry him a bit to
discover that I had come to take the presents instead of to take care
of them! I showed a sufficiently faint appreciation of the jest. And
it was presently punished as it deserved, by the most violent paroxysm
that had seized the sufferer yet: the fight for breath became faster
and more furious, and the former weapons of no more avail. I prepared
a cigarette, but the poor brute was too breathless to inhale. I poured
out yet more whiskey, but he put it from him with a gesture.

"Amyl--get me amyl!" he gasped. "The tin on the table by my bed."

I rushed into his room, and returned with a little tin of tiny
cylinders done up like miniature crackers in scraps of calico; the
spent youth broke one in his handkerchief, in wh