of the lid of the chest, like that of the saint upon its charger.

But Raffles was alive, Raffles was laughing as though his vocal
cords would snap - there was neither tragedy nor illusion in the
apparition of Raffles. A life-size Jack-in-the-box, he had thrust
his head through a lid within the lid, cut by himself between the
two iron bands that ran round the chest like the straps of a
portmanteau. He must have been busy at it when I found him
pretending to pack, if not far into that night, for it was a very
perfect piece of work; and even as I stared without a word, and he
crouched laughing in my face, an arm came squeezing out, keys in
hand; one was turned in either of the two great padlocks, the whole
lid lifted, and out stepped Raffles like the conjurer he was.

"So you were the burglar!" I exclaimed at last. "Well, I am just
as glad I didn't know."

He had wrung my hand already, but at this he fairly mangled it in
his.

"You dear little brick," he cried, "that's the one thing of all.
things I longed to hear you say! How could you have behaved as
you've done if you had known? How could any living man? How could
you have acted, as the polar star of all. the stages could not have
acted in your place? Remember that I have heard a lot, and as good
as seen as much as I've heard. Bunny, I don't know where you were
greatest: at the Albany, here, or at your bank!"

"I don't know where I was most miserable," I rejoined, beginning to
see the matter in a less perfervid light. "I know you don't credit