n give us. I came to you first, because I thought you might be
getting anxious. Come round with me, and I won't keep you long."

"You're certain you've given him the slip?" I said, as we put on our
hats.

"Certain enough; but we can make assurance doubly sure," said Raffles,
and went to my window, where he stood for a moment or two looking down
into the street.

"All right?" I asked him.

"All right," said he; and we went downstairs forthwith, and so to the
Albany arm-in-arm.

But we were both rather silent on our way. I, for my part, was
wondering what Raffles would do about the studio in Chelsea, whither,
at all events, he had been successfully dogged. To me the point seemed
one of immediate importance, but when I mentioned it he said there was
time enough to think about that. His one other remark was made after
we had nodded (in Bond Street) to a young blood of our acquaintance who
happened to be getting himself a bad name.

"Poor Jack Rutter!" said Raffles, with a sigh. "Nothing's sadder than
to see a fellow going to the bad like that. He's about mad with drink
and debt, poor devil! Did you see his eye? Odd that we should have
met him to-night, by the way; it's old Baird who's said to have skinned
him. By God, but I'd like to skin old Baird!"

And his tone took a sudden low fury, made the more noticeable by
another long silence, which lasted, indeed, throughout an admirable
dinner at the club, and for some time after we had settled down in a
quiet corner of the smoking-room with our coffee and cigars. Then at
last I saw Raffles looking at me with his lazy smile, and I knew that
the morose fit was at an end.

"I daresay you wonder what I've been thinking about all this time?"
said he. "I've been thinking what rot it is to go doing things by
halves!"

"Well," said I, returning his smile, "that's not a charge that you can
bring against yourself, is it?"

"I'm not so sure," said Raffles, blowing a meditative puff; "as a
matter of fact, I was thinking less of myself than of that poor devil
of a Jack Rutter. There's a fellow who does things by halves; he's
only half gone to the bad; and look at the difference between him and
us! He's under the thumb of a villainous money-lender; we are solvent
citizens. He's taken to drink; we're as sober as we are solvent. His
pals are beginning to cut him; our difficulty is to keep the pal from
the door. Enfin, he begs or borrows, which is stealing by halves;