such a plan would have been
highly unwise in Dr. Theobald. I, however, was sending him daily
screeds, and both matutinal and nocturnal telegrams, the composition of
which afforded Raffles not a little enjoyment.

"Well, then, when--when?" I began to repeat.

"To-morrow, if you like."

"Only to look?"

The limitation was my one regret.

"We must do so, Bunny, before we leap."

"Very well," I sighed. "But to-morrow it is!"

And the morrow it really was.

I saw the porter that night, and, I still think, bought his absolute
allegiance for the second coin of the realm. My story, however,
invented by Raffles, was sufficiently specious in itself. That sick
gentleman, Mr. Maturin (as I had to remember to call him), was really,
or apparently, sickening for fresh air. Dr. Theobald would allow him
none; he was pestering me for just one day in the country while the
glorious weather lasted. I was myself convinced that no possible harm
could come of the experiment. Would the porter help me in so innocent
and meritorious an intrigue? The man hesitated. I produced my
half-sovereign. The man was lost. And at half-past eight next
morning--before the heat of the day--Raffles and I drove to Kew Gardens
in a hired landau which was to call for us at mid-day and wait until we
came. The porter had assisted me to carry my invalid downstairs, in a
carrying-chair hired (like the landau) from Harrod's Stores for the
occasion.

It was little after nine when we crawled together into the gardens; by
half-past my invalid had had enough, and out he tottered on my arm; a
cab, a message to our coachman, a timely train to Baker Street,
another cab, and we were at the British Museum--brisk pedestrians
now--not very many minutes after the opening hour of 10 A.M.

It was one of those glowing days which will not be forgotten by many
who were in town at the time. The Diamond Jubilee was upon us, and
Queen's weather had already set in. Raffles, indeed, declared it was
as hot as Italy and Australia put together; and certainly the short
summer nights gave the channels of wood and asphalt and the continents
of brick and mortar but little time to cool. At the British Museum the
pigeons were crooning among the shadows of the grimy colonnade, and the
stalwart janitors looked less stalwart than usual, as though their
medals were too heavy for them. I recognized some habitual Readers
going to their labor underneath the dome; of mere