cracked together--you with your innocent eyes shut. A thousand
pounds that stuff was worth; but how many hundreds did it
actually fetch. The Ardagh emeralds weren't much better; old
Lady Melrose's necklace was far worse; but that little lot the
other night has about finished me. A cool hundred for goods
priced well over four; and L35 to come off for bait, since we
only got a tenner for the ring I bought and paid for like an
ass. I'll be shot if I ever touch a diamond again! Not if it
was the Koh-I-noor; those few whacking stones are too well
known, and to cut them up is to decrease their value by
arithmetical retrogression. Besides, that brings you up against
the Fence once more, and I'm done with the beggars for good and
all. You talk about your editors and publishers, you literary
swine. Barabbas was neither a robber nor a publisher, but a
six-barred, barbed-wired, spike-topped Fence. What we really
want is an Incorporated Society of Thieves, with some
public-spirited old forger to run it for us on business lines."

Raffles uttered these blasphemies under his breath, not, I am
afraid, out of any respect for my one redeeming profession, but
because we were taking a midnight airing on the roof, after a
whole day of June in the little flat below. The stars shone
overhead, the lights of London underneath, and between the lips
of Raffles a cigarette of the old and only brand. I had sent in
secret for a box of the best; the boon had arrived that night;
and the foregoing speech was the first result. I could afford
to ignore the insolent asides, however, where the apparent
contention was so manifestly unsound.

"And how are you going to get rid of your gold?" said I,