"

"I was just looking at it," said the person in sequins. "You don't
know what a turn I've had, or you'd offer me a little something."

"You shall have a little something in a minute," rejoined Maguire.
"But if you take a little anything out of that decanter, you'll
collapse like our friend upon the floor."

"Good heavens!" I cried out, with involuntary indignation, and his
fell scheme broke upon me in a clap.

"Yes, _sir_!" said Maguire, fixing me with his bloodshot orbs. "My
trap for crooks and cracksmen is a bottle of hocussed whiskey, and I
guess that's it on the table, with the silver label around its neck.
Now look at this other decanter, without any label at all; but for
that they're the dead spit of each other. I'll put them side by side,
so you can see. It isn't only the decanters, but the liquor looks the
same in both, and tastes so you wouldn't know the difference till you
woke up in your tracks. I got the poison from a blamed Indian away
west, and it's ruther ticklish stuff. So I keep the label around the
trap-bottle, and only leave it out nights. That's the idea, and that's
all there is to it," added Maguire, putting the labelled decanter back
in the stand. "But I figure it's enough for ninety-nine crooks out of
a hundred, and nineteen out of twenty 'll have their liquor before
they go to work."

"I wouldn't figure on that," observed the secretary, with a downward
glance as though at the prostrate Raffles. "Have you looked to see if
the trophies are all safe?"

"Not yet," said Maguire, with a glance at the pseudo-antique cabinet
in which he kept them.

"Then you can save yourself the trouble," rejoined the secretary, as
he dived under the octagonal table, and came up with a small black
bag that I knew at a glance. It was the one that Raffles had used for
heavy plunder ever since I had known him.

The bag was so heavy now that the secretary used both hands to get it
on the table. In another moment he had taken out the jewelled belt
presented to Maguire by the State of Nevada, the solid silver
statuette of himself, and the gold brick from the citizens of
Sacramento.

Either the sight of his treasures, so nearly lost, or the feeling that
the thief had dared to tamper with them after all, suddenly infuriated
Maguire to such an extent that he had bestowed a couple of brutal
kicks upon the senseless form of Raffles before the secretary and I
could interfere.

"Play light, Mr. Maguire!" cried the sa