quent like myself; besides, this
one had come to the front since my day. Yet a risk it was, and I
certainly did not smile as I bent over the album of horrors produced
by our guide. I could still take an interest in the dreadful
photographs of murderous and murdered men; they appealed to the morbid
element in my nature; and it was doubtless with degenerate unction
that I called Raffles's attention to a certain scene of notorious
slaughter. There was no response. I looked round. There was no Raffles
to respond. We had all three been examining the photographs at one of
the windows; at another three newcomers were similarly engrossed; and
without one word, or a single sound, Raffles had decamped behind all
our backs.

Fortunately the clerk was himself very busy gloating over the horrors
of the album; before he looked round I had hidden my astonishment, but
not my wrath, of which I had the instinctive sense to make no secret.

"My friend's the most impatient man on earth!" I exclaimed. "He said
he was going to catch a train, and now he's gone without a word!"

"I never heard him," said the clerk, looking puzzled.

"No more did I; but he did touch me on the shoulder," I lied, "and say
something or other. I was too deep in this beastly book to pay much
attention. He must have meant that he was off. Well, let him be off! I
mean to see all that's to be seen."

And in my nervous anxiety to allay any suspicions aroused by my
companion's extraordinary behavior, I outstayed even the eminent
detective and his friends, saw them examine the Raffles Relics, heard
them discuss me under my own nose, and at last was alone with the
anaemic clerk. I put my hand in my pocket, and measured him with a
side-long eye. The tipping system is nothing less than a minor bane of
my existence. Not that one is a grudging giver, but simply because in
so many cases it is so hard to know whom to tip and what to tip him. I
know what it is to be the parting guest who has not parted freely
enough, and that not from stinginess but the want of a fine instinct
on the point. I made no mistake, however, in the case of the clerk,
who accepted my pieces of silver without demur, and expressed a hope
of seeing the article which I had assured him I was about to write. He
has had some years to wait for it, but I flatter myself that these
belated pages will occasion more interest than offense if they ever do
meet those watery eyes.

Twilight was falling when I reac