"Grotesque enough, but I rather wish they had let him go the
whole hog and blaze away. He was as keen as knives to show us
how he could take care of his purple diamonds; and, do you know,
Bunny, _I_ was as keen as knives to see."

And Raffles leaned towards me with a sly, slow smile that made
the hidden meaning of his visit only too plain to me at last.

"So you think of having a try for his diamonds yourself?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"It is horribly obvious, I admit. But--yes, I have set my heart
upon them! To be quite frank, I have had them on my conscience
for some time; one couldn't hear so much of the man, and his
prize-fighter, and his diamonds, without feeling it a kind of
duty to have a go for them; but when it comes to brandishing a
revolver and practically challenging the world, the thing becomes
inevitable. It is simply thrust upon one. I was fated to hear
that challenge, Bunny, and I, for one, must take it up. I was
only sorry I couldn't get on my hind legs and say so then and
there."

"Well," I said, "I don't see the necessity as things are with us;
but, of course, I'm your man."

My tone may have been half-hearted. I did my best to make it
otherwise. But it was barely a month since our Bond Street
exploit, and we certainly could have afforded to behave ourselves
for some time to come. We had been getting along so nicely: by