Raffles | Page 9

store upon the very landing. Instead of going downstairs,
Raffles led me up two flights, and so out upon a perfectly flat roof.
"There are two entrances to these mansions," he explained between
stars and chimney-stacks: "one to our staircase, and another round the
corner. But there's only one porter, and he lives on the basement
underneath us, and affects the door nearest home. We miss him by
using the wrong stairs, and we run less risk of old Theobald. I got the
tip from the postmen, who come up one way and down the other. Now,

follow me, and look out!"
There was indeed some necessity for caution, for each half of the
building had its L-shaped well dropping sheer to the base, the parapets
so low that one might easily have tripped over them into eternity.
However, we were soon upon the second staircase, which opened on
the roof like the first. And twenty minutes of the next twenty-five we
spent in an admirable hansom, skimming east.
"Not much change in the old hole, Bunny. More of these magic-lantern
advertisements . . . and absolutely the worst bit of taste in town, though
it's saying something, in that equestrian statue with the gilt stirrups and
fixings; why don't they black the buffer's boots and his horse's hoofs
while they are about it? . . . More bicyclists, of course. That was just
beginning, if you remember. It might have been useful to us. . . . And
there's the old club, getting put into a crate for the Jubilee; by Jove,
Bunny, we ought to be there. I wouldn't lean forward in Piccadilly, old
chap. If you're seen I'm thought of, and we shall have to be jolly careful
at Kellner's. . . . Ah, there it is! Did I tell you I was a low-down stage
Yankee at Kellner's? You'd better be another, while the waiter's in the
room."
We had the little room upstairs; and on the very threshold I, even I,
who knew my Raffles of old, was taken horribly aback. The table was
laid for three. I called his attention to it in a whisper.
"Why, yep!" came through his nose. "Say, boy, the lady, she's not
comin', but you leave that tackle where 'tis. If I'm liable to pay, I guess
I'll have all there is to it."
I have never been in America, and the American public is the last on
earth that I desire to insult; but idiom and intonation alike would have
imposed upon my inexperience. I had to look at Raffles to make sure
that it was he who spoke, and I had my own reasons for looking hard.
"Who on earth was the lady?" I inquired aghast at the first opportunity.
"She isn't on earth. They don't like wasting this room on two, that's all.

Bunny--my Bunny--here's to us both!"
And we clinked glasses swimming with the liquid gold of Steinberg,
1868; but of the rare delights of that supper I can scarcely trust myself
to write. It was no mere meal, it was no coarse orgy, but a little feast for
the fastidious gods, not unworthy of Lucullus at his worst. And I who
had bolted my skilly at Wormwood Scrubbs, and tightened my belt in a
Holloway attic, it was I who sat down to this ineffable repast! Where
the courses were few, but each a triumph of its kind, it would be
invidious to single out any one dish; but the Jambon de Westphalie au
Champagne tempts me sorely. And then the champagne that we drank,
not the quantity but the quality! Well, it was Pol Roger, '84, and quite
good enough for me; but even so it was not more dry, nor did it sparkle
more, than the merry rascal who had dragged me thus far to the devil,
but should lead me dancing the rest of the way. I was beginning to tell
him so. I had done my honest best since my reappearance in the world;
but the world had done its worst by me. A further antithesis and my
final intention were both upon my tongue when the waiter with the
Chateau Margaux cut me short; for he was the bearer of more than that
great wine; bringing also a card upon a silver tray.
"Show him up," said Raffles, laconically.
"And who is this?" I cried when the man was gone. Raffles reached
across the table and gripped my arm in a vice. His eyes were steel
points fixed on mine.
"Bunny, stand by me," said he in the old irresistible voice, a voice both
stern and winning. "Stand by me, Bunny--if there's a row!"
And there was time for nothing more, the door flying open, and a
dapper person entering with