"Not to steal, Bunny! I haven't stolen a thing. But staying here
I certainly am, and having the most complete rest a busy man could
wish."

"There'll be no rest for me!"

Raffles laughed as he struck a match. I had followed him into what
would have been the back drawing-room in the ordinary little London
house; the inspector of prisons had converted it into a separate
study by filling the folding doors with book-shelves, which I scanned
at once for the congenial works of which Raffles had spoken. I was
not able to carry my examination very far. Raffles had lighted a
candle, stuck (by its own grease) in the crown of an opera hat, which
he opened the moment the wick caught. The light thus struck the
ceiling in an oval shaft, which left the rest of the room almost as
dark as it had been before.

"Sorry, Bunny!" said Raffles, sitting on one pedestal of a desk from
which the top had been removed, and setting his makeshift lantern on
the other. "In broad daylight, when it can't be spotted from the
outside, you shall have as much artificial light as you like. If
you want to do some writing, that's the top of the desk on end
against the mantlepiece. You'll never have a better chance so far
as interruption goes. But no midnight oil or electricity! You
observe that their last care was to fix up these shutters; they
appear to have taken the top off the desk to get at 'em without
standing on it; but the beastly things wouldn't go all. the way up,
and the strip they leave would give us away to the backs of the other
houses if we lit up after dark. Mind that telephone! If you touch
the receiver they will know at the exchange that the house is not