"Orders, orders," was the reply. "I ain't such a juggins as to go
agen a toff as makes it worf while to do as I'm bid an' 'old me
tongue."

"And who may you be?" I asked jealously. "And what are you to Mr.
Raffles?"

"You silly ass, Bunny, don't tell all. Kensington that I'm in town!"
replied my tatterdemalion, shooting up and smoothing out into a
merely shabby Raffles. "Here, take my arm - I'm not so beastly as
I look. But neither am I in town, nor in England, nor yet on the
face of the earth, for all. that's known of me to a single soul but
you."

"Then where are you," I asked, "between ourselves?"

"I've taken a house near here for the holidays, where I'm going
in for a Rest Cure of my own description. Why? Oh, for lots of
reasons, my dear Bunny; among others, I have long had a wish to
grow my own beard; under the next lamppost you will agree that
it's training on very nicely. Then, you mayn't know it, but there's
a canny man at Scotland Yard who has had a quiet eye on me longer
than I like. I thought it about time to have an eye on him, and I
stared him in the face outside the Albany this very morning. That
was when I saw you go in, and scribbled a line to give you when you
came out. If he had caught us talking he would have spotted me at
once."

"So you are lying low out here!"