E. W. Hornung_A J Raffles 01 Read Online Free PDF Page A

than
wrong. I'll never ask it again. Go, if you want to, and come
again about mid-day for the cash. There was no bargain; but, of
course, I'll get you out of your scrape—especially after the way
you've stood by me to-night."
    I was round again with my blood on fire.
    "I'll do it again," I said, through my teeth.
    He shook his head. "Not you," he said, smiling quite
good-humoredly on my insane enthusiasm.
    "I will," I cried with an oath. "I'll lend you a hand as often
as you like! What does it matter now? I've been in it once.
I'll be in it again. I've gone to the devil anyhow. I can't go
back, and wouldn't if I could. Nothing matters another rap!
When you want me, I'm your man!"
    And that is how Raffles and I joined felonious forces on the Ides
of March.

A Costume Piece
*
    London was just then talking of one whose name is already a name
and nothing more. Reuben Rosenthall had made his millions on the
diamond fields of South Africa, and had come home to enjoy them
according to his lights; how he went to work will scarcely be
forgotten by any reader of the halfpenny evening papers, which
revelled in endless anecdotes of his original indigence and
present prodigality, varied with interesting particulars of the
extraordinary establishment which the millionaire set up in St.
John's Wood. Here he kept a retinue of Kaffirs, who were
literally his slaves; and hence he would sally, with enormous
diamonds in his shirt and on his finger, in the convoy of a
prize-fighter of heinous repute, who was not, however, by any
means the worst element in the Rosenthall melange. So said
common gossip; but the fact was sufficiently established by the
interference of the police on at least one occasion, followed by
certain magisterial proceedings which were reported with
justifiable gusto and huge headlines in the newspapers aforesaid.
    And this was all one knew of Reuben Rosenthall up to the time
when the Old Bohemian Club, having fallen on evil days, found it
worth its while to organize a great dinner in honor of so wealthy
an exponent of the club's principles. I was not at the banquet
myself, but a member took Raffles, who told me all about it that
very night.
    "Most extraordinary show I ever went to in my life," said he.
"As for the man himself—well, I was prepared for something
grotesque, but the fellow fairly took my breath away. To begin
with, he's the most astounding brute to look at, well over six
feet, with a chest like a barrel, and a great hook-nose, and the
reddest hair and whiskers you ever saw. Drank like a
fire-engine, but only got drunk enough to make us a speech that I
wouldn't have missed for ten pounds. I'm only sorry you weren't
there, too, Bunny, old chap."
    I began to be sorry myself, for Raffles was anything but an
excitable person, and never had I seen him so excited before.
Had he been following Rosenthall's example? His coming to my
rooms at midnight, merely to tell me about his dinner, was in
itself enough to excuse a suspicion which was certainly at
variance with my knowledge of A. J. Raffles.
    "What did he say?" I inquired mechanically, divining some subtler
explanation of this visit, and wondering what on earth it could
be.
    "Say?" cried Raffles. "What did he not say! He boasted of his
rise, he bragged of his riches, and he blackguarded society for
taking him up for his money and dropping him out of sheer pique
and jealousy because he had so much. He mentioned names, too,
with the most charming freedom, and swore he was as good a man as
the Old Country had to show—PACE the Old Bohemians. To prove it
he pointed to a great diamond in the middle of his shirt-front
with a little finger loaded with another just like it: which of
our bloated princes could show a pair like that? As a matter of
fact, they seemed quite wonderful stones, with a curious purple
gleam to them that must mean a pot of money. But old Rosenthall
swore he wouldn't take fifty thousand pounds for the two, and
wanted to know where the other man was