to me that I actually remained on the same side of the door as
Raffles.

"Reel home-grown, low-down, unwashed Whitechapel!" I had heard Maguire
remark within. "Blamed if our Bowery boys ain't cock-angels to scum
like this. Ah, you biter, I wouldn't soil my knuckles on your ugly
face; but if I had my thick boots on I'd dance the soul out of your
carcass for two cents!"

After this it required less courage to join the others in the inner
room; and for some moments even I failed to identify the truly
repulsive object about which I found them grouped. There was no false
hair upon the face, but it was as black as any sweep's. The clothes,
on the other hand, were new to me, though older and more pestiferous in
themselves than most worn by Raffles for professional purposes. And at
first, as I say, I was far from sure whether it was Raffles at all; but
I remembered the crash that cut short our talk over the telephone; and
this inanimate heap of rags was lying directly underneath a wall
instrument, with the receiver dangling over him.

"Think you know him?" asked the sallow secretary, as I stooped and
peered with my heart in my boots.

"Good Lord, no! I only wanted to see if he was dead," I explained,
having satisfied myself that it was really Raffles, and that Raffles
was really insensible. "But what on earth has happened?" I asked in
my turn.

"That's what I want to know," whined the person in sequins, who had
contributed various ejaculations unworthy of report, and finally
subsided behind an ostentatious fan.

"I should judge," observed the secretary, "that it's for Mr. Maguire to
say, or not to say, just as he darn pleases."

But the celebrated Barney stood upon a Persian hearth-rug, beaming upon
us all in a triumph too delicious for immediate translation into words.
The room was furnished as a study, and most artistically furnished, if
you consider outlandish shapes in fumed oak artistic. There was nothing
of the traditional prize-fighter about Barney Maguire, except his
vocabulary and his lower jaw. I had seen over his house already, and
it was fitted and decorated throughout by a high-art firm which
exhibits just such a room as that which was the scene of our
tragedietta. The person in the sequins lay glistening like a landed
salmon in a quaint chair of enormous nails and tapestry compact. The
secretary leaned against an escritoire with huge hinges of beaten
metal. The pugilist's own background pres