hort, and the
wicket good. What I admired, and what I remember, was the combination
of resource and cunning, of patience and precision, of head-work and
handiwork, which made every over an artistic whole. It was all so
characteristic of that other Raffles whom I alone knew!

"I felt like bowling this afternoon," he told me later in the hansom.
"With a pitch to help me, I'd have done something big; as it is, three
for forty-one, out of the four that fell, isn't so bad for a slow
bowler on a plumb wicket against those fellows. But I felt venomous!
Nothing riles me more than being asked about for my cricket as though I
were a pro. myself."

"Then why on earth go?"

"To punish them, and--because we shall be jolly hard up, Bunny, before
the season's over!"

"Ah!" said I. "I thought it was that."

"Of course, it was! It seems they're going to have the very devil of a
week of it--balls--dinner parties--swagger house party--general
junketings--and obviously a houseful of diamonds as well. Diamonds
galore! As a general rule nothing would induce me to abuse my position
as a guest. I've never done it, Bunny. But in this case we're engaged
like the waiters and the band, and by heaven we'll take our toll!
Let's have a quiet dinner somewhere and talk it over."

"It seems rather a vulgar sort of theft," I could not help saying; and
to this, my single protest, Raffles instantly assented.

"It is a vulgar sort," said he; "but I can't help that. We're getting
vulgarly hard up again, and there's an end on 't. Besides, these
people deserve it, and can afford it. And don't you run away with the
idea that all will be plain sailing; nothing will be easier than
getting some stuff, and nothing harder than avoiding all suspicion, as,
of course, we must. We may come away with no more than a good working
plan of the premises. Who knows? In any case there's weeks of
thinking in it for you and me."

But with those weeks I will not weary you further than by remarking
that the "thinking," was done entirely by Raffles, who did not always
trouble to communicate his thoughts to me. His reticence, however, was
no longer an irritant. I began to accept it as a necessary convention
of these little enterprises. And, after our last adventure of the
kind, more especially after its denouement, my trust in Raffles was
much too solid to be shaken by a want of trust in me, which I still
believe to have been more the instinct of the crimi