Mr. Justice Raffles | Page 4

knowledge nor experience could sensibly pollute. And yet I had a
shrewd suspicion that wild oats had been somewhat freely sown, and
that it was Raffles who had stepped in and taken the sower in hand, and
turned him into the stuff of which Blues are made. At least I knew that
no one could be sounder friend or saner counsellor to any young fellow
in need of either. And many there must be to bear me out in their hearts;
but they did not know their Raffles as I knew mine; and if they say that
was why they thought so much of him, let them have patience, and at
last they shall hear something that need not make them think the less.
"I couldn't let poor Teddy keep at Lord's," explained Raffles, "and me
not there to egg him on! You see, Bunny, I taught him a thing or two in
those little matches we played together last August. I take a fatherly
interest in the child."
"You must have done him a lot of good," I suggested, "in every way."
Raffles looked up from his bill and asked me what I meant. I saw he

was not pleased with my remark, but I was not going back on it.
"Well, I should imagine you had straightened him out a bit, if you ask
me."
"I didn't ask you, Bunny, that's just the point!" said Raffles. And I
watched him tip the waiter without the least arrière-pensée on either
side.
"After all," said I, on our way down the marble stair, "you have told me
a good deal about the lad. I remember once hearing you say he had a lot
of debts, for example."
"So I was afraid," replied Raffles, frankly; "and between ourselves, I
offered to finance him before I went abroad. Teddy wouldn't hear of it;
that hot young blood of his was up at the thought, though he was
perfectly delightful in what he said. So don't jump to rotten conclusions,
Bunny, but stroll up to the Albany and have a drink."
And when we had reclaimed our hats and coats, and lit our Sullivans in
the hall, out we marched as though I were now part-owner of the place
with Raffles.
"That," said I, to effect a thorough change of conversation, since I felt
at one with all the world, "is certainly the finest grill in Europe."
"That's why we went there, Bunny."
"But must I say I was rather surprised to find you a member of a place
where you tip the waiter and take a ticket for your hat!"
I was not surprised, however, to hear Raffles defend his own
caravanserai.
"I would go a step further," he remarked, "and make every member
show his badge as they do at Lord's."
"But surely the porter knows the members by sight?"

"Not he! There are far too many thousands of them."
"I should have thought he must."
"And I know he doesn't."
"Well, you ought to know, A.J., since you're a member yourself."
"On the contrary, my dear Bunny, I happen to know because I never
was one!"
CHAPTER II
"His Own Familiar Friend"
How we laughed as we turned into Whitehall! I began to feel I had
been wrong about Raffles after all, and that enhanced my mirth. Surely
this was the old gay rascal, and it was by some uncanny feat of his
stupendous will that he had appeared so haggard on the platform. In the
London lamplight that he loved so well, under a starry sky of an almost
theatrical blue, he looked another man already. If such a change was
due to a few draughts of bitter beer and a few ounces of fillet steak,
then I felt I was the brewers' friend and the vegetarians' foe for life.
Nevertheless I could detect a serious side to my companion's mood,
especially when he spoke once more of Teddy Garland, and told me
that he had cabled to him also before leaving Carlsbad. And I could not
help wondering, with a discreditable pang, whether his intercourse with
that honest lad could have bred in Raffles a remorse for his own
misdeeds, such as I myself had often tried, but always failed, to
produce.
So we came to the Albany in sober frame, for all our recent levity,
thinking at least no evil for once in our lawless lives. And there was our
good friend Barraclough, the porter, to salute and welcome us in the
courtyard.
"There's a gen'leman writing you a letter upstairs," said he to Raffles.
"It's Mr. Garland, sir, so I took him up."

"Teddy!" cried Raffles, and took the stairs two at a time.
I followed rather heavily. It was not jealousy, but I did feel rather
critical of