really big coup yet; when I do I shall chuck it up."

Yes, I remembered both cases very well. To think that he was
their author! It was incredible, outrageous, inconceivable.
Then my eyes would fall upon the table, twinkling and glittering
in a hundred places, and incredulity was at an end.

"How came you to begin?" I asked, as curiosity overcame mere
wonder, and a fascination for his career gradually wove itself
into my fascination for the man.

"Ah! that's a long story," said Raffles. "It was in the
Colonies, when I was out there playing cricket. It's too long a
story to tell you now, but I was in much the same fix that you
were in to-night, and it was my only way out. I never meant it
for anything more; but I'd tasted blood, and it was all over with
me. Why should I work when I could steal? Why settle down to
some humdrum uncongenial billet, when excitement, romance, danger
and a decent living were all going begging together? Of course
it's very wrong, but we can't all be moralists, and the
distribution of wealth is very wrong to begin with. Besides,
you're not at it all the time. I'm sick of quoting Gilbert's
lines to myself, but they're profoundly true. I only wonder if
you'll like the life as much as I do!"

"Like it?" I cried out. "Not I! It's no life for me. Once is
enough!"

"You wouldn't give me a hand another time?"