was I anxious to do so then. But he followed me
and took my hand.

"Bunny," said he, "don't you be hard on a fellow! I was in the deuce
of a hurry, and didn't know that I should ever get what I wanted in
time, and that's a fact. But it serves me right that you should have
gone and undone one of the best things I ever did. As for YOUR
handiwork, old chap, you won't mind my saying that I didn't think you
had it in you. In future--"

"Don't talk to me about the future!" I cried. "I hate the whole thing!
I'm going to chuck it up!"

"So am I," said Raffles, "when I've made my pile."

THE RETURN MATCH

I had turned into Piccadilly, one thick evening in the following
November, when my guilty heart stood still at the sudden grip of a hand
upon my arm. I thought--I was always thinking--that my inevitable hour
was come at last. It was only Raffles, however, who stood smiling at
me through the fog.

"Well met!" said he. "I've been looking for you at the club."

"I was just on my way there," I returned, with an attempt to hide my
tremors. It was an ineffectual attempt, as I saw from his broader
smile, and by the indulgent shake of his head.

"Come up to my place instead," said he. "I've something amusing to
tell you."

I made excuses, for his tone foretold the kind of amusement, and it was
a kind against which I had successfully set my face for months. I have
stated before, however, and I can but reiterate, that to me, at all
events, there was never anybody in the world so irresistible as Raffles
when his mind was made up. That we had both been independent of crime
since our little service to Sir Bernard Debenham--that there had been
no occasion for that masterful mind to be made up in any such direction
for many a day--was the undeniable basis of a longer spell of honesty
than I had hitherto enjoyed during the term of our mutual intimacy. Be
sure I would deny it if I could; the very thing I am to tell you would
discredit such a boast. I made my excuses, as I have said.

But his arm slid through mine, with his little laugh of light-hearted
mastery. And even while I argued we were on his staircase in the
Albany.

His fire had fallen low. He poked and replenished it after lighting
the gas. As for me, I stood by sullenly in my overcoat until he
dragged it off my back.

"What a chap you are!" said Raffles, playfully. "One would really think
I had proposed to crack another crib this blessed night! W