Raffles bestowed the cachet of his smile on my description of his
motley plate. He joined me in one of his favorite cigarettes, only
shaking a superior head at his own decanter.

"One question at a time, Bunny," said he. "In the first place, I
am going to have these rooms freshened up with a potful of paint,
the electric light, and the telephone you've been at me about so
long."

"Good!" I cried. "Then we shall be able to talk to each other day
and night!"

"And get overheard and run in for our pains? I shall wait till you
are run in, I think," said Raffles cruelly. "But the rest's a
necessity: not that I love new paint or am pining for electric light,
but for reasons which I will just breathe in your private ear, Bunny.
You must not try to take them too seriously; but the fact is, there
is just the least bit of a twitter against me in this rookery of an
Albany. It must have been started by that tame old bird, Policeman
Mackenzie; it isn't very bad as yet, but it needn't be that to reach
my ears. Well, it was open to me either to clear out altogether,
and so confirm whatever happened to be in the air, or to go off for
a time, under some arrangement which would give the authorities
ample excuse for overhauling every inch of my rooms. Which would
you have done, Bunny?"

"Cleared out, while I could!" said I devoutly.

"So I should have thought," rejoined Raffles. "Yet you see the merit
of my plan. I shall leave every mortal thing unlocked."