R. Holmes Co. | Page 9

wedding,
'but for a wife like that, hanged if I wouldn't compound the ten
commandments!'
"I hope," I ventured to put in at that point, "that the marriage ceremony
was not performed by the Reverend James Tattersby."
"Not on your life!" retorted Raffles Holmes. "My father was too fond
of my mother to permit of any flaw in his title. A year later I was born,
and-- well, here I am--son of one, grandson of the other, with hereditary
traits from both strongly developed and ready for business. I want a
literary partner--a man who will write me up as Bunny did Raffles, and
Watson did Holmes, so that I may get a percentage on that part of the
swag. I offer you the job, Jenkins. Those royalty statements show me
that you are the man, and your books prove to me that you need a few
fresh ideas. Come, what do you say? Will you do it?"
"My boy," said I, enthusiastically, "don't say another word. Will I?
Well, just try me!"
And so it was that Raffles Holmes and I struck a bargain and became
partners.

III THE ADVENTURE OF MRS. BURLINGAME'S DIAMOND
STOMACHER
I had seen the marvellous creation very often at the opera, and in many
ways resented it. Not that I was in the least degree a victim to envy,
hatred, and malice towards those who are possessed of a
superabundance of this world's good things--far from it. I rejoice in the
great fortunes of earth because, with every dollar corralled by the
superior energies of the multi- millionaires, the fewer there are for
other men to seek, and until we stop seeking dollars and turn our minds

to other, finer things, there will be no hope of peace and sweet content
upon this little green ball we inhabit. My resentment of Mrs.
Burlingame's diamond stomacher was not then based on envy of its
possession, but merely upon the twofold nuisance which it created at
the opera-house, as the lady who wore it sat and listened to the strains
of Wagner, Bizet, or Gounod, mixed in with the small-talk of Reggie
Stockson, Tommie de Coupon, and other lights of the social firmament.
In the first place, it caused the people sitting about me in the high seats
of the opera- house to chatter about it and discuss its probable worth
every time the lady made her appearance in it, and I had fled from the
standee part of the house to the top gallery just to escape the talkers,
and, if possible, to get my music straight, without interruptions of any
sort whatsoever on the side. In the second place, the confounded thing
glittered so that, from where I sat, it was as dazzling as so many small
mirrors flashing in the light of the sun. It seemed as if every electric
light in the house found some kind of a refractor in the thousands of
gems of which it was composed, and many of the brilliant light effects
of the stage were dimmed in their lustre by the persistent intrusion of
Mrs. Burlingame's glory upon my line of vision.
Hence in was that, when I picked up my morning paper and read in
great flaring head-lines on the front page that Mrs. Burlingame's
diamond stomacher had been stolen from her at her Onyx Cottage at
Newport, I smiled broadly, and slapped the breakfast-table so hard in
my satisfaction that even the shredded-wheat biscuits flew up into the
air and caught in the chandelier.
"Thank Heaven for that!" I said. "Next season I shall be able to enjoy
my opera undisturbed."
"I little thought, at that blissful moment, how closely indeed were my
own fortunes to be connected with that wonderful specimen of the
jeweler's handicraft, but an hour later I was made aware of the first link
in the chain that, in a measure, bound me to it. Breakfast over, I went to
my desk to put the finishing touches to a novel I had written the week
before, when word came up on the telephone from below that a
gentleman from Busybody's Magazine wished to see me on an

important matter of business.
"Tell him I'm already a subscriber," I called down, supposing the visitor
to be merely an agent. "I took the magazine, and a set of Chaucer in a
revolving bookcase, from one of their agents last month and have paid
my dollar."
In a moment another message came over the wire.
"The gentleman says he wants to see you about writing a couple of
full-page sonnets for the Christmas number," the office man 'phoned
up.
"Show him up," I replied, instantly.
Two minutes later a rather handsome man, with a fine eye and a long,
flowing gray beard, was ushered into