, though
it was never an accomplishment of mine."

"Not Crawshay again?" I cried, standing still in my hat.

Raffles regarded me with that tantalizing smile of his which might
mean nothing, yet which often meant so much; and in a flash I was
convinced that our most jealous enemy and dangerous rival, the doyen
of an older school, had paid him yet another visit.

"That remains to be seen," was the measured reply; "and I for one have
not set naked eye on the fellow since I saw him off through that
window and left myself for dead on this very spot. In fact, I imagined
him comfortably back in jail."

"Not old Crawshay!" said I. "He's far too good a man to be taken
twice. I should call him the very prince of professional cracksmen."

"Should you?" said Raffles coldly, with as cold an eye looking into
mine. "Then you had better prepare to repel princes when I'm gone."

"But gone where?" I asked, finding a corner for my hat and coat, and
helping myself to the comforts of the venerable dresser which was one
of our friend's greatest treasures. "Where is it you are off to, and
why are you taking this herd of white elephants with you?"

Raffles bestowed the cachet of his smile on my description of his
motley plate. He joined me in one of his favorite cigarettes, only
shaking a superior head at his own decanter.

"One question at a time, Bunny," said he. "In the first place, I am
going to have these rooms freshened up with a potful of paint, the
electric light, and the telephone you've been at me about so long."

"Good!" I cried. "Then we shall be able to talk to each other day and
night!"

"And get overheard and run in for our pains? I shall wait till you
_are_ run in, I think," said Raffles cruelly. "But the rest's a
necessity: not that I love new paint or am pining for electric light,
but for reasons which I will just breathe in your private ear, Bunny.
You must not try to take them too seriously; but the fact is, there is
just the least bit of a twitter against me in this rookery of an
Albany. It must have been started by that tame old bird, Policeman
Mackenzie; it isn't very bad as yet, but it needn't be that to reach
my ears. Well, it was open to me either to clear out altogether, and
so confirm whatever happened to be in the air, or to go off for a
time, under some arrangement which would give the authorities ample
excuse for overhauling every inch of my rooms. Which would you have
done, Bunny?"

"Cleared out, w