"If he's in bed."

"And it's essential that I should go in with you?"

"Absolutely."

"Then I must; but I'm bound to say I don't like the idea,
Raffles."

"Do you prefer the alternative?" asked my companion, with a
sneer. "No, hang it, that's unfair!" he cried apologetically in
the same breath. "I quite understand. It's a beastly ordeal.
But it would never do for you to stay outside. I tell you what,
you shall have a peg before we start--just one. There's the
whiskey, here's a syphon, and I'll be putting on an overcoat
while you help yourself."

Well, I daresay I did so with some freedom, for this plan of his
was not the less distasteful to me from its apparent
inevitability. I must own, however, that it possessed fewer
terrors before my glass was empty. Meanwhile Raffles rejoined
me, with a covert coat over his blazer, and a soft felt hat set
carelessly on the curly head he shook with a smile as I passed
him the decanter.

"When we come back," said he. "Work first, play afterward. Do
you see what day it is?" he added, tearing a leaflet from a
Shakespearian calendar, as I drained my glass. "March 15th.
'The Ides of March, the Ides of March, remember.' Eh, Bunny, my