American. A true Londoner, however, I myself had never heard of it until Raffles casually proposed a raid.

“The older I grow, Bunny, the less I think of your so-called precious stones. When did they ever bring in half their market value in £. s. d. There was the first little crib we ever cracked together—you with your innocent eyes shut. A thousand pounds that stuff was worth; but how many hundreds did it actually fetch. The Ardagh emeralds weren’t much better; old Lady Melrose’s necklace was far worse; but that little lot the other night has about finished me. A cool hundred for goods priced well over four; and £35 to come off for bait, since we only got a tenner for the ring I bought and paid for like an ass. I’ll be shot if I ever touch a diamond again! Not if it was the Koh-i-noor; those few whacking stones are too well known, and to cut them up is to decrease their value by arithmetical retrogression. Besides, that brings you up against the Fence once more, and I’m done with the beggars for good and all. You talk about your editors and publishers, you literary swine. Barabbas was neither a robber nor a publisher, but a six-barred, barbed-wired, spike-topped Fence. What we really want is an Incorporated Society of Thieves, with some public-spirited old forger to run it for us on business lines.”

Raffles uttered these blasphemies under his breath, not, I am afraid, out of any respect for my one redeeming profession, but because we were taking a midnight airing on the roof, after a whole day of June in the little flat below. The stars shone overhead, the lights of London underneath, and between the lips of Raffles a cigarette of the old and only brand. I had sent in secret for a box of the best; the boon had arrived that night; and the foregoing speech was the first result. I could afford to ignore the insolent asides, however, where the apparent contention was so manifestly unsound.“And how are you going to get rid of your gold?” said I, pertinently.  “Nothing easier, my dear rabbit.”  “Is your Room of Gold a roomful of sovereigns?”  Raffles laughed softly at my scorn.  “No, Bunny, it’s principally in the shape of archaic ornaments, whose value, I admit, is largely extrinsic. But gold is gold, from Phœnicia to Klondike, and if we cleared the room we should eventually do very well.”  “How?”  “I should melt it down into a nugget, and bring it home from the U.S.A. to-morrow.”  “And then?”  “Make them pay up in hard cash across the counter of the Bank of England. And you _can_ make them.”  That I knew, and so said nothing for a time, remaining a hostile though a silent critic, while we paced the cool black leads with our bare feet, softly as cats.  “And how do you 

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