e leverage you can get from below. But it makes a noise,
and this is where you're coming in, Bunny; this is where I couldn't do
without you. I must have you overhead to knock through when the
street's clear. I'll come with you and show a light."

Well, you may imagine how little I liked the prospect of this lonely
vigil; and yet there was something very stimulating in the vital
responsibility which it involved. Hitherto I had been a mere
spectator. Now I was to take part in the game. And the fresh
excitement made me more than ever insensible to those considerations of
conscience and of safety which were already as dead nerves in my breast.

So I took my post without a murmur in the front room above the shop.
The fixtures had been left for the refusal of the incoming tenant, and
fortunately for us they included Venetian blinds which were already
down. It was the simplest matter in the world to stand peeping through
the laths into the street, to beat twice with my foot when anybody was
approaching, and once when all was clear again. The noises that even I
could hear below, with the exception of one metallic crash at the
beginning, were indeed incredibly slight; but they ceased altogether at
each double rap from my toe; and a policeman passed quite half a dozen
times beneath my eyes, and the man whom I took to be the jeweller's
watchman oftener still, during the better part of an hour that I spent
at the window. Once, indeed, my heart was in my mouth, but only once.
It was when the watchman stopped and peered through the peep-hole into
the lighted shop. I waited for his whistle--I waited for the gallows
or the gaol! But my signals had been studiously obeyed, and the man
passed on in undisturbed serenity.

In the end I had a signal in my turn, and retraced my steps with
lighted matches, down the broad stairs, down the narrow ones, across
the area, and up into the lobby where Raffles awaited me with an
outstretched hand.

"Well done, my boy!" said he. "You're the same good man in a pinch,
and you shall have your reward. I've got a thousand pounds' worth if
I've got a penn'oth. It's all in my pockets. And here's something
else I found in this locker; very decent port and some cigars, meant
for poor dear Danby's business friends. Take a pull, and you shall
light up presently. I've found a lavatory, too, and we must have a
wash-and-brush-up before we go, for I'm as black as your boot."

The iron curtain was