"
"How can you?"
"Oh, I begin to know your methods."
"You take it I went in with my eyes open, as I do now, eh?"
"I can't imagine your doing otherwise."
"My dear Bunny, it was the most unpremeditated thing I ever did
in my life!"
His chair wheeled back into the books as he sprang up with sudden
energy. There was quite an indignant glitter in his eyes.
"I can't believe that," said I craftily. "I can't pay you such a
poor compliment!"
"Then you must be a fool--"
He broke off, stared hard at me, and in a trice stood smiling in
his own despite.
"Or a better knave than I thought you, Bunny, and by Jove it's
the knave! Well--I suppose I'm fairly drawn; I give you best, as
they say out there. As a matter of fact I've been thinking of
the thing myself; last night's racket reminds me of it in one or
two respects. I tell you what, though, this is an occasion in
any case, and I'm going to celebrate it by breaking the one good
rule of my life. I'm going to have a second drink!"
The whiskey tinkled, the syphon fizzed, the ice plopped home; and
seated there in his pyjamas, with the inevitable cigarette,
Raffles told me the story that I had given up hoping to hear.
The windows were wide open; the sounds of Piccadilly floated in
at first. Long before he finished, the last wheels had rattled,
the last brawler was removed, we alone broke the quiet of the
summer night.
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