pass-book bulging with old cheques."

"And as I wasn't back to write one for you," said Raffles, "you wrote it
for me. And quite right, too!"

"Don't laugh at me!" cried the boy, his lost colour rushing back. And he
looked at me again as though my long face hurt him less than the
sprightly sympathy of his friend.

"I'm not laughing, Teddy," replied Raffles kindly. "I was never more
serious in my life. It was playing the friend to come to me at all in
your fix, but it was the act of a real good pal to draw on me behind my
back rather than let me feel I'd ruined you by not turning up in time.
You may shake your head as hard as you like, but I never was paid a
higher compliment."

And the consummate casuist went on working a congenial vein until a less
miserable sinner might have been persuaded that he had done nothing
really dishonourable; but young Garland had the grace neither to make nor
to accept any excuse for his own conduct. I never heard a man more down
upon himself, or confession of error couched in stronger terms; and yet
there was something so sincere and ingenuous in his remorse, something
that Raffles and I had lost so long ago, that in our hearts I am sure we
took his follies more seriously than our own crimes. But foolish he
indeed had been, if not criminally foolish as he said. It was the old
story of the prodigal son of an indulgent father. There had been, as I
suspected, a certain amount of youthful riot which the influence of
Raffles had already quelled; but there had also been much reckless
extravagance, of which Raffles naturally knew less, since your scapegrace
is constitutionally quicker to confess himself as such than as a fool.