Page:Hornung - The amateur cracksman (Scribner, 1905).djvu/81

 spoil everything, if it did no more. Besides, there are the ladies"

"The deuce there are!"

"Ladies with an i, and the very voices for raising Cain. I fear, I fear the clamour! It would be fatal to us. Au contraire, if we can manage to stow ourselves away unbeknowns, half the battle will be won. If Rosenthall turns in drunk, it's a purple diamond a-piece. If he sits up sober, it may be a bullet instead. We will hope not, Bunny; and all the firing wouldn't be on one side; but it's on the knees of the gods."

And so we left it when we shook hands in Piccadilly—not by any means as much later as I could have wished. Raffles would not ask me to his rooms that night. He said he made it a rule to have a long night before playing cricket and—other games. His final word to me was framed on the same principle.

"Mind, only one drink to-night. Bunny. Two at the outside—as you value your life—and mine!"

I remember my abject obedience; and the endless, sleepless night it gave me; and the