as quite an indignant glitter in his eyes.

"I can't believe that," said I craftily. "I can't pay you such a poor
compliment!"

"Then you must be a fool--"

He broke off, stared hard at me, and in a trice stood smiling in his
own despite.

"Or a better knave than I thought you, Bunny, and by Jove it's the
knave! Well--I suppose I'm fairly drawn; I give you best, as they say
out there. As a matter of fact I've been thinking of the thing myself;
last night's racket reminds me of it in one or two respects. I tell
you what, though, this is an occasion in any case, and I'm going to
celebrate it by breaking the one good rule of my life. I'm going to
have a second drink!"

The whiskey tinkled, the syphon fizzed, the ice plopped home; and
seated there in his pyjamas, with the inevitable cigarette, Raffles
told me the story that I had given up hoping to hear. The windows were
wide open; the sounds of Piccadilly floated in at first. Long before
he finished, the last wheels had rattled, the last brawler was removed,
we alone broke the quiet of the summer night.

"... No, they do you very well, indeed. You pay for nothing but drinks,
so to speak, but I'm afraid mine were of a comprehensive character. I
had started in a hole, I ought really to have refused the invitation;
then we all went to the Melbourne Cup, and I had the certain winner
that didn't win, and that's not the only way you can play the fool in
Melbourne. I wasn't the steady old stager I am now, Bunny; my analysis
was a confession in itself. But the others didn't know how hard up I
was, and I swore they shouldn't. I tried the Jews, but they're extra
fly out there. Then I thought of a kinsman of sorts, a second cousin of
my father's whom none of us knew anything about, except that he was
supposed to be in one or other of the Colonies. If he was a rich man,
well and good, I would work him; if not there would be no harm done. I
tried to get on his tracks, and, as luck would have it, I succeeded (or
thought I had) at the very moment when I happened to have a few days to
myself. I was cut over on the hand, just before the big Christmas
match, and couldn't have bowled a ball if they had played me.

"The surgeon who fixed me up happened to ask me if I was any relation
of Raffles of the National Bank, and the pure luck of it almost took my
breath away. A relation who was a high official in one of the banks,
who would finance me on my mere name--could an