"Intimately."

"I remember now. You were with him when he forced himself upon me on
the way down yesterday. He had to tell me who he was. Yet he talks as
though we were old friends."

"You were in the upper sixth together," I rejoined, nettled by his
tone.

"What does that matter? I am glad to say I had too much self-respect,
and too little respect for Raffles, ever to be a friend of his then. I
knew too many of the things he did," said Nipper Nasmyth.

His fluent insults had taken my breath. But in a lucky flash I saw my
retort.

"You must have had special opportunities of observation, living in the
town," said I; and drew first blood between the long hair and the
ragged beard; but that was all.

"So he really did get out at nights?" remarked my adversary. "You
certainly give your friend away. What's he doing now?"

I let my eyes follow Raffles round the room before replying. He was
waltzing with a master's wife--waltzing as he did everything else.
Other couples seemed to melt before them. And the woman on his arm
looked a radiant girl.

"I meant in town, or wherever he lives his mysterious life," explained
Nasmyth, when I told him that he could see for himself. But his clever
tone did not trouble me; it was his epithet that caused me to prick my
ears. And I found some difficulty in following Raffles right round the
room.

"I thought everybody knew what he was doing; he's playing cricket most
of his time," was my measured reply; and if it bore an extra touch of
insolence, I can honestly ascribe that to my nerves.

"And is that all he does for a living?" pursued my inquisitor keenly.

"You had better ask Raffles himself," said I to that. "It's a pity you
didn't ask him in public, at the meeting!"

But I was beginning to show temper in my embarrassment, and of course
that made Nasmyth the more imperturbable.

"Really, he might be following some disgraceful calling, by the
mystery you make of it!" he exclaimed. "And for that matter I call
first-class cricket a disgraceful calling, when it's followed by men
who ought to be gentlemen, but are really professionals in gentlemanly
clothing. The present craze for gladiatorial athleticism I regard as
one of the great evils of the age; but the thinly veiled
professionalism of the so-called amateur is the greatest evil of that
craze. Men play for the gentlemen and are paid more than the players
who walk out of another gate. In my time there was none of that.
Am