the morning. Yet that which we discussed between two and three was what
we actually did between nine and ten, with the single exception
necessitated by an altogether unforeseen development, of which the less
said the better until the proper time. The foresight and imagination of a
Raffles are obviously apt to outstrip his spoken words; but even in the
course of speech his ideas would crystallise, quite palpably to the
listener, and the sentence that began by throwing out a shadowy idea
would culminate in a definite project, as the image comes into focus
under the lens, and with as much detail into the bargain.

Suffice it that after a long night of it at the Albany, and but a bath
and a cup of tea at my own flat, I found Raffles waiting for me in
Piccadilly, and down we went together to the jaws of Jermyn Street. There
we nodded, and I was proceeding down the hill when I turned on my heel as
though I had forgotten something, and entered Jermyn Street not fifty
yards behind Raffles. I had no thought of catching him up. But it so
happened that I was in his wake in time to witness a first _contretemps_
which did not amount to much at the time; this was merely the violent
exit of another of Dan Levy's early callers into the very arms of
Raffles. There was a heated apology, accepted with courteous composure,
and followed by an excited outpouring which I did not come near enough to
overhear. It was delivered by a little man in an aureole of indigo hair,
who brushed his great sombrero violently as he spoke and Raffles
listened. I could see from their manner that the collision which had just
occurred was not the subject under discussion; but I failed to
distinguish a word, though I listened outside a hatter's until Raffles
had gone in and his new acquaintance had passed me with blazing eyes and
a volley of husky vows in broken English.

"Another of Mr. Shylock's victims," thought I; and indeed he might have