ay you pretty well for these, eh?"

"Not a penny."

"Nonsense, Bunny! I thought they paid so well? Give them time, and
you'll get your check."

"Oh, no, I sha'n't," said I gloomily. "I've got to be content with the
honor of getting in; the editor wrote to say so, in so many words," I
added. But I gave the gentleman his distinguished name.

"You don't mean to say you've written for payment already?"

No; it was the last thing I had intended to admit. But I had done it.
The murder was out; there was no sense in further concealment. I had
written for my money because I really needed it; if he must know, I was
cursedly hard up. Raffles nodded as though he knew already. I warmed
to my woes. It was no easy matter to keep your end up as a raw
freelance of letters; for my part, I was afraid I wrote neither well
enough nor ill enough for success. I suffered from a persistent
ineffectual feeling after style. Verse I could manage; but it did not
pay. To personal paragraphs and the baser journalism I could not and I
would not stoop.

Raffles nodded again, this time with a smile that stayed in his eyes as
he leant back watching me. I knew that he was thinking of other things
I had stooped to, and I thought I knew what he was going to say. He
had said it before so often; he was sure to say it again. I had my
answer ready, but evidently he was tired of asking the same question.
His lids fell, he took up the paper he had dropped, and I sculled the
length of the old red wall of Hampton Court before he spoke again.

"And they gave you nothing for these! My dear Bunny, they're capital,
not only qua verses but for crystallizing your subject and putting it
in a nutshell. Certainly you've taught ME more about it than I knew
before. But is it really worth fifty thousand pounds--a single pearl?"

"A hundred, I believe; but that wouldn't scan."

"A hundred thousand pounds!" said Raffles, with his eyes shut. And
again I made certain what was coming, but again I was mistaken. "If
it's worth all that," he cried at last, "there would be no getting rid
of it at all; it's not like a diamond that you can subdivide. But I
beg your pardon, Bunny. I was forgetting!"

And we said no more about the emperor's gift; for pride thrives on an
empty pocket, and no privation would have drawn from me the proposal
which I had expected Raffles to make. My expectation had been half a
hope, though I only knew it now. But neither did w