th us if he does? One
left much the same things, lying much as he left them, under a
dust-sheet which is only taken off for the benefit of the curious, who
often don't turn up for weeks on end."

I admitted that we might be safe for three or four weeks. Raffles held
out his hand.

"Then let us be friends about it, Bunny, and smoke the cigarette of
Sullivan and peace! A lot may happen in three or four weeks; and what
should you say if this turned out to be the last as well as the least
of all my crimes? I must own that it seems to me their natural and
fitting end, though I might have stopped more characteristically than
with a mere crime of sentiment. No, I make no promises, Bunny; now I
have got these things, I may be unable to resist using them once more.
But with this war one gets all the excitement one requires--and rather
more than usual may happen in three or four weeks?"

Was he thinking even then of volunteering for the front? Had he
already set his heart on the one chance of some atonement for his
life--nay, on the very death he was to die? I never knew, and shall
never know. Yet his words were strangely prophetic, even to the three
or four weeks in which those events happened that imperilled the fabric
of our empire, and rallied her sons from the four winds to fight
beneath her banner on the veldt. It all seems very ancient history
now. But I remember nothing better or more vividly than the last words
of Raffles upon his last crime, unless it be the pressure of his hand
as he said them, or the rather sad twinkle in his tired eyes.

The Last Word

The last of all these tales of Raffles is from a fresher and a sweeter
pen. I give it exactly as it came to me, in a letter which meant more
to me than it can possibly mean to any other reader. And yet, it may
stand for something with those for whom these pale reflections have a
tithe of the charm that the real man had for me; and it is to leave
such persons thinking yet a little better of him (and not wasting
another thought on me) that I am permitted to retail the very last word
about their hero and mine.

The letter was my first healing after a chance encounter and a
sleepless night; and I print every word of it except the last.

"39 CAMPDEN GROVE COURT, W.,
"June 28, 1900.

"DEAR HARRY: You may have wondered at the very few words I could find
to say to you when we m