weeded out and weeded out to the irreducible minimum of risk.

His greatest risk, according to Raffles, lay nearest home:
bedridden invalid that he was supposed to be, his nightly terror
was of running into Theobald's arms in the immediate
neighborhood of the flat. But Raffles had characteristic
methods of minimizing even that danger, of which something
anon; meanwhile he recounted more than one of his nocturnal
adventures, all, however, of a singularly innocent type; and one
thing I noticed while he talked. His room was the first as you
entered the flat. The long inner wall divided the room not
merely from the passage but from the outer landing as well.
Thus every step upon the bare stone stairs could be heard by
Raffles where he lay; and he would never speak while one was
ascending, until it had passed his door. The afternoon brought
more than one applicant for the post which it was my duty to
tell them that I had already obtained. Between three and four,
however, Raffles, suddenly looking at his watch, packed me off
in a hurry to the other end of London for my things.

"I'm afraid you must be famishing, Bunny. It's a fact that I
eat very little, and that at odd hours, but I ought not to have
forgotten you. Get yourself a snack outside, but not a square
meal if you can resist one. We've got to celebrate this day
this night!"

"To-night?" I cried.

"To-night at eleven, and Kellner's the place. You may well open
your eyes, but we didn't go there much, if you remember, and the