is study's a storehouse of
criminology. It has been quite amusing to lie on one's back and have a
good look at one's self as others fondly imagine they see one."

"But surely you get some exercise?" I asked; for he was leading me at a
good rate through the leafy byways of Camp den Hill; and his step was
as springy and as light as ever.

"The best exercise I ever had in my life," said Raffles; "and you would
never live to guess what it is. It's one of the reasons why I went in
for this seedy kit. I follow cabs. Yes, Bunny, I turn out about dusk
and meet the expresses at Euston or King's Cross; that is, of course, I
loaf outside and pick my cab, and often run my three or four miles for
a bob or less. And it not only keeps you in the very pink: if you're
good they let you carry the trunks up-stairs; and I've taken notes from
the inside of more than one commodious residence which will come in
useful in the autumn. In fact, Bunny, what with these new Rowton
houses, my beard, and my otherwise well-spent holiday, I hope to have
quite a good autumn season before the erratic Raffles turns up in town."

I felt it high time to wedge in a word about my own far less
satisfactory affairs. But it was not necessary for me to recount half
my troubles. Raffles could be as full of himself as many a worse man,
and I did not like his society the less for these human outpourings.
They had rather the effect of putting me on better terms with myself,
through bringing him down to my level for the time being. But his
egoism was not even skin-deep; it was rather a cloak, which Raffles
could cast off quicker than any man I ever knew, as he did not fail to
show me now.

"Why, Bunny, this is the very thing!" he cried. "You must come and
stay with me, and we'll lie low side by side. Only remember it really
is a Rest Cure. I want to keep literally as quiet as I was without
you. What do you say to forming ourselves at once into a practically
Silent Order? You agree? Very well, then, here's the street and
that's the house."

It was ever such a quiet little street, turning out of one of those
which climb right over the pleasant hill. One side was monopolized by
the garden wall of an ugly but enviable mansion standing in its own
ground; opposite were a solid file of smaller but taller houses; on
neither side were there many windows alight, nor a solitary soul on the
pavement or in the road. Raffles led the way to one of the small tal