orry I had spoken. Raffles was looking at me across the
magazine. There was a smile on his lips that I knew too well, a light
in his eyes that I had kindled.

"What an excellent idea!" he exclaimed, quite softly, as though
working it out already in his brain.

"I didn't mean it for one," I answered, "and no more do you."

"Certainly I do," said Raffles. "I was never more serious in my
life."

"You would march into Scotland Yard in broad daylight?"

"In broad lime-light," he answered, studying the magazine again, "to
set eyes on my own once more. Why here they all are, Bunny--you never
told me there was an illustration. That's the chest you took to your
bank with me inside, and those must be my own rope-ladder and things
on top. They produce so badly in the baser magazines that it's
impossible to swear to them; there's nothing for it but a visit of
inspection."

"Then you can pay it alone," said I grimly. "You may have altered, but
they'd know me at a glance."

"By all means, Bunny, if you'll get me the pass."

"A pass!" I cried triumphantly. "Of course we should have to get one,
and of course that puts an end to the whole idea. Who on earth would
give a pass for this show, of all others, to an old prisoner like me?"

Raffles addressed himself to the reading of the magazine with a shrug
that showed some temper.

"The fellow who wrote this article got one," said he shortly. "He got
it from his editor, and you can get one from yours if you tried. But
pray don't try, Bunny: it would be too terrible for you to risk a
moment's embarrassment to gratify a mere whim of mine. And if I went
instead of you and got spotted, which is so likely with this head of
hair, and the general belief in my demise, the consequences to you
would be too awful to contemplate! Don't contemplate them, my dear
fellow. And do let me read my magazine."

Need I add that I set about the rash endeavor without further
expostulation? I was used to such ebullitions from the altered Raffles
of these later days, and I could well understand them. All the
inconvenience of the new conditions fell on him. I had purged my known
offences by imprisonment, whereas Raffles was merely supposed to have
escaped punishment in death. The result was that I could rush in where
Raffles feared to tread, and was his plenipotentiary in all honest
dealings with the outer world. It could not but gall him to be so
dependent upon me, and it was for me to minimize the hum