You
won't find me at my rooms. Why not come down to Esher yourself
by the last train? That's it--down you come with the latest
news! I'll tell old Debenham to expect you: he shall give us
both a bed. By Jove! he won't be able to do us too well if he's
got his picture."
"If!" I groaned as he nodded his adieu; and he left me limp with
apprehension, sick with fear, in a perfectly pitiable condition
of pure stage-fright.
For, after all, I had only to act my part; unless Raffles failed
where he never did fail, unless Raffles the neat and noiseless
was for once clumsy and inept, all I had to do was indeed to
"smile and smile and be a villain." I practiced that smile half
the afternoon. I rehearsed putative parts in hypothetical
conversations. I got up stories. I dipped in a book on
Queensland at the club. And at last it was 7.45, and I was
making my bow to a somewhat elderly man with a small bald head
and a retreating brow.
"So you're Mr. Raffles's friend?" said he, overhauling me rather
rudely with his light small eyes. "Seen anything of him?
Expected him early to show me something, but he's never come."
No more, evidently, had his telegram, and my troubles were
beginning early. I said I had not seen Raffles since one
o'clock, telling the truth with unction while I could; even as we
spoke there came a knock at the door; it was the telegram at
last, and, after reading it himself, the Queenslander handed it
to me.
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