me, and it made me sick to hear it. But I
once broke my own head, Bunny, if you remember, and not in half such
an excellent cause!"

Raffles touched all his pockets in his turn, the pockets that contained
a small fortune apiece, and he smiled in my face as we crossed the
lighted avenues of the Mall. Next moment he was hailing a hansom--for
I suppose I was still pretty pale--and not a word would he let me
speak until we had alighted as near as was prudent to the flat.

"What a brute I've been, Bunny!" he whispered then, "but you take half
the swag, old boy, and right well you've earned it. No, we'll go in by
the wrong door and over the roof; it's too late for old Theobald to be
still at the play, and too early for him to be safely in his cups."

So we climbed the many stairs with cat-like stealth, and like cats
crept out upon the grimy leads. But to-night they were no blacker than
their canopy of sky; not a chimney-stack stood out against the starless
night; one had to feel one's way in order to avoid tripping over the
low parapets of the L-shaped wells that ran from roof to basement to
light the inner rooms. One of these wells was spanned by a flimsy
bridge with iron handrails that felt warm to the touch as Raffles led
the way across! A hotter and a closer night I have never known.

"The flat will be like an oven," I grumbled, at the head of our own
staircase.

"Then we won't go down," said Raffles, promptly; "we'll slack it up
here for a bit instead. No, Bunny, you stay where you are! I'll fetch
you a drink and a deck-chair, and you shan't come down till you feel
more fit."

And I let him have his way, I will not say as usual, for I had even
less than my normal power of resistance that night. That villainous
upper-cut! My head still sang and throbbed, as I seated myself on one
of the aforesaid parapets, and buried it in my hot hands. Nor was the
night one to dispel a headache; there was distinct thunder in the air.
Thus I sat in a heap, and brooded over my misadventure, a pretty
figure of a subordinate villain, until the step came for which I
waited; and it never struck me that it came from the wrong direction.

"You have been quick," said I, simply.

"Yes," hissed a voice I recognized; "and you've got to be quicker
still! Here, out with your wrists; no, one at a time; and if you utter
a syllable you're a dead man."

It was Lord Ernest Belville; his close-cropped, iron-gray moustache
gleamed