"Not he! There are far too many thousands of them."

"I should have thought he must."

"And I know he doesn't."

"Well, you ought to know, A.J., since you're a member yourself."

"On the contrary, my dear Bunny, I happen to know because I never was
one!"




CHAPTER II

"His Own Familiar Friend"


How we laughed as we turned into Whitehall! I began to feel I had been
wrong about Raffles after all, and that enhanced my mirth. Surely this
was the old gay rascal, and it was by some uncanny feat of his stupendous
will that he had appeared so haggard on the platform. In the London
lamplight that he loved so well, under a starry sky of an almost
theatrical blue, he looked another man already. If such a change was due
to a few draughts of bitter beer and a few ounces of fillet steak, then I
felt I was the brewers' friend and the vegetarians' foe for life.
Nevertheless I could detect a serious side to my companion's mood,
especially when he spoke once more of Teddy Garland, and told me that he