ect these specimens of his conversation, though they were
doubtless detached at the time, and interspersed with remarks of mine
here and there. They filled the interval until dinner was served, and
they gave me an impression of the man which his every subsequent
utterance confirmed. It was an impression which did away with all
remorse for my treacherous presence at his table. He was that terrible
type, the Silly Cynic, his aim a caustic commentary on all things and
all men, his achievement mere vulgar irreverence and unintelligent
scorn. Ill-bred and ill-informed, he had (on his own showing) fluked
into fortune on a rise in land; yet cunning he possessed, as well as
malice, and he chuckled till he choked over the misfortunes of less
astute speculators in the same boom. Even now I cannot feel much
compunction for my behavior by the Hon. J. M. Craggs, M.L.C.

But never shall I forget the private agonies of the situation, the
listening to my host with one ear and for Raffles with the other! Once
I heard him--though the rooms were not divided by the old-fashioned
folding-doors, and though the door that did divide them was not only
shut but richly curtained, I could have sworn I heard him once. I
spilt my wine and laughed at the top of my voice at some coarse sally
of my host's. And I heard nothing more, though my ears were on the
strain. But later, to my horror, when the waiter had finally withdrawn,
Craggs himself sprang up and rushed to his bedroom without a word. I
sat like stone till he returned.

"Thought I heard a door go," he said. "Must have been mistaken ...
imagination ... gave me quite a turn. Raffles tell you priceless
treasure I got in there?"

It was the picture at last; up to this point I had kept him to
Queensland and the making of his pile. I tried to get him back there
now, but in vain. He was reminded of his great ill-gotten possession.
I said that Raffles had just mentioned it, and that set him off. With
the confidential garrulity of a man who has dined too well, he plunged
into his darling topic, and I looked past him at the clock. It was
only a quarter to ten.

In common decency I could not go yet. So there I sat (we were still at
port) and learnt what had originally fired my host's ambition to
possess what he was pleased to call a "real, genuine, twin-screw,
double-funnelled, copper-bottomed Old Master"; it was to "go one
better" than some rival legislator of pictorial proclivities.