FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   >>  
brilliant blood-red stone worth not less than fifteen hundred dollars. I breathed a sigh of relief. "I wondered what you were going to do with the necklace," I said. "So did I--for three days," said Holmes, "and then, when I realized that I was a single man, I decided to give it up. If I'd had a wife to wear a necklace--well, I'm a little afraid the Raffles side of my nature would have won out." "I wonder whatever became of Darlington," said I. "I don't know. Sommers says he left town suddenly that same Wednesday night, without paying his bill," Holmes answered. "And Cato?" "I didn't inquire, but, from what I know of Bob Hollister, I am rather inclined to believe that Cato left the Powhatan by way of the front window, or possibly out through the plumbing, in some way," laughed Holmes. "Either way would be the most comfortable under the circumstances." X THE MAJOR-GENERAL'S PEPPERPOTS I had often wondered during the winter whether or no it would be quite the proper thing for me to take my friend Raffles Holmes into the sacred precincts of my club. By some men--and I am one of them--the club, despite the bad name that clubs in general have as being antagonistic to the home, is looked upon as an institution that should be guarded almost as carefully against the intrusion of improper persons as is one's own habitat, and while I should never have admitted for a moment that Raffles was an undesirable chap to have around, I could not deny that in view of certain characteristics which I knew him to possess, the propriety of taking him into "The Heraclean" was seriously open to question. My doubts were set at rest, however, on that point one day in January last, when I observed seated at one of our luncheon-tables the Reverend Dr. Mulligatawnny, Rector of Saint Mammon-in-the-Fields, a highly esteemed member of the organization, who had with him no less a person than Mr. E. H. Merryman, the railway magnate, whose exploits in Wall Street have done much to give to that golden highway the particular kind of perfume which it now exudes to the nostrils of people of sensitive honor. Surely, if Dr. Mulligatawnny was within his rights in having Mr. Merryman present, I need have no misgivings as to mine in having Raffles Holmes at the same table. The predatory instinct in his nature was as a drop of water in the sea to that ocean of known acquisitiveness which has floated Mr. Merryman into his high place in the worl
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   >>  



Top keywords:

Holmes

 

Raffles

 

Merryman

 
nature
 
Mulligatawnny
 

necklace

 
wondered
 

taking

 

possess

 

acquisitiveness


Heraclean
 

propriety

 

question

 

doubts

 

persons

 
floated
 

improper

 

intrusion

 

carefully

 
habitat

admitted

 
moment
 

undesirable

 

characteristics

 

observed

 

Street

 

golden

 
exploits
 

present

 

railway


magnate

 

rights

 

exudes

 

nostrils

 

people

 

perfume

 

Surely

 

highway

 

misgivings

 

Reverend


tables

 

predatory

 

Rector

 

luncheon

 

sensitive

 

seated

 
instinct
 

Mammon

 

person

 

organization