"You'd think anything, some of you damned policemen," said he.
"What's your number, you rotter? P 34? You'll be hearing more
of this, Mr. P 34! If that gentleman was dead--instead of coming
to himself while I'm talking--do you know what you'd be? Guilty
of his manslaughter, you stuck pig in buttons! Do you know who
you've let slip, butter-fingers? Crawshay--no less--him that
broke Dartmoor yesterday. By the God that made ye, P 34, if I
lose him I'll hound ye from the forrce!"
Working face--shaking fist--a calm man on fire. It was a new
side of Mackenzie, and one to mark and to digest. Next moment he
had flounced from our midst.
"Difficult thing to break your own head," said Raffles later;
"infinitely easier to cut your own throat. Chloroform's another
matter; when you've used it on others, you know the dose to a
nicety. So you thought I was really gone? Poor old Bunny! But
I hope Mackenzie saw your face?"
"He did," said I. I would not tell him all Mackenzie must have
seen, however.
"That's all right. I wouldn't have had him miss it for worlds;
and you mustn't think me a brute, old boy, for I fear that man,
and, know, we sink or swim together."
"And now we sink or swim with Crawshay, too," said I dolefully.
"Not we!" said Raffles with conviction. "Old Crawshay's a true
sportsman, and he'll do by us as we've done by him; besides, this
makes us quits; and I don't think, Bunny, that we'll take on the
professors again!"
THE GIFT OF THE EMPEROR
I
When the King of the Cannibal Islands made faces at Queen
Victoria, and a European monarch set the cables tingling with his
compliments on the exploit, the indignation in England was not
less than the surprise, for the thing was not so common as it has
since become.
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