sailing too near the wind, we are sure to hear about it, and can
trim our yards accordingly. Moreover, we shall get a very good
dinner into the bargain, or our noble host will belie a European
reputation."

"Do you know him?" I asked.

"We have a pavilion acquaintance, when it suits my lord," replied
Raffles, chuckling. "But I know all. about him. He was president
one year of the M.C.C., and we never had a better. He knows the
game, though I believe he never played cricket in his life. But
then he knows most things, and has never done any of them. He has
never even married, and never opened his lips in the House of Lords.
Yet they say there is no better brain in the August assembly, and
he certainly made us a wonderful speech last time the Australians
were over. He has read everything and (to his credit in these days)
never written a line. All. round he is a whale for theory and a
sprat for practice - but he looks quite capable of both at crime!"

I now longed to behold this remarkable peer, in the flesh, and with
the greater curiosity since another of the things which he evidently
never did was to have his photograph published for the benefit of
the vulgar. I told Raffles that I would dine with him at Lord
Thornaby's, and he nodded as though I had not hesitated for a moment.
I see now how deftly he had disposed of my reluctance. No doubt he
had thought it all. out before: his little speeches look sufficiently
premeditated as I set them down at the dictates of an excellent
memory. Let it, however, be borne in mind that Raffles did not talk
exactly like a Raffles book: he said the things, but he did not say
them in so many consecutive breaths. They were punctuated by puffs