on to him!"

"Good old Beefy!"

"Beefy's got him!"

"So have I--so have I!"

And Raffles caught my arm with his one free hand. "They've got me
tight," he whispered. "I'm done."

"Blaze through the door," I urged, and might have done it had I been
armed. But I never was. It was Raffles who monopolized that risk.

"I can't--it's the boys--the wrong house!" he whispered. "Curse the
fog--it's done me. But you get out, Bunn, while you can; never mind
me; it's my turn, old chap."

His one hand tightened in affectionate farewell. I put the electric
torch in it before I went, trembling in every inch, but without a word.

Get out! His turn! Yes, I would get out, but only to come in again,
for it was my turn--mine--not his. Would Raffles leave me held by a
hand through a hole in a door? What he would have done in my place was
the thing for me to do now. I began by diving head-first through the
pantry window and coming to earth upon all fours. But even as I stood
up, and brushed the gravel from the palms of my hands and the knees of
my knickerbockers, I had no notion what to do next. And yet I was
halfway to the front door before I remembered the vile crape mask upon
my face, and tore it off as the door flew open and my feet were on
the steps.

"He's into the next garden," I cried to a bevy of pyjamas with bare
feet and young faces at either end of them.

"Who? Who?" said they, giving way before me.

"Some fellow who came through one of your windows head-first."

"The other Johnny, the other Johnny," the cherubs chorused.

"Biking past--saw the light--why, what have you there?"

Of course it was Raffles's hand that they had, but now I was in the
hall among them. A red-faced barrel of a boy did all the holding, one
hand round the wrist, the other palm to palm, and his knees braced up
against the panel. Another was rendering ostentatious but ineffectual
aid, and three or four others danced about in their pyjamas. After
all, they were not more than four to one. I had raised my voice, so
that Raffles might hear me and take heart, and now I raised it again.
Yet to this day I cannot account for my inspiration, that proved
nothing less.

"Don't talk so loud," they were crying below their breath; "don't wake
'em upstairs, this is our show."

"Then I see you've got one of them," said I, as desired. "Well, if you
want the other you can have him, too. I believe he's hurt himself."

"After him,