Himself a dangerous
bat, a brilliant field, and perhaps the very finest slow bowler
of his decade, he took incredibly little interest in the game at
large. He never went up to Lord's without his cricket-bag, or
showed the slightest interest in the result of a match in which
he was not himself engaged. Nor was this mere hateful egotism on
his part. He professed to have lost all enthusiasm for the game,
and to keep it up only from the very lowest motives.
"Cricket," said Raffles, "like everything else, is good enough
sport until you discover a better. As a source of excitement it
isn't in it with other things you wot of, Bunny, and the
involuntary comparison becomes a bore. What's the satisfaction
of taking a man's wicket when you want his spoons? Still, if you
can bowl a bit your low cunning won't get rusty, and always
looking for the weak spot's just the kind of mental exercise one
wants. Yes, perhaps there's some affinity between the two things
after all. But I'd chuck up cricket to-morrow, Bunny, if it
wasn't for the glorious protection it affords a person of my
proclivities."
"How so?" said I. "It brings you before the public, I should
have thought, far more than is either safe or wise."
"My dear Bunny, that's exactly where you make a mistake. To
follow Crime with reasonable impunity you simply MUST have a
parallel, ostensible career--the more public the better.
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