E. W. Hornung_A J Raffles 03 (12 page)

I was probably the only one who saw the sudden and yet subtle change
in Raffles - the hard mouth, the harder eye. I, at least, might
have foreseen the sequel then and there. But his quiet voice
betrayed nothing, as he inquired whether Nasmyth was going to speak
at next night's meeting. Nasmyth said he might, and certainly
warned us what to expect. He was still fulminating when our train
came in.

"Then we meet again at Philippi," cried Raffles in gay adieu. "For
you have been very frank with us all., Nasmyth, and I'll be frank
enough in my turn to tell you that I've every intention of speaking
on the other side!"

It happened that Raffles had been asked to speak by his old college
friend, the new head master. Yet it was not at the school-house
that he and I were to stay, but at the house that we had both been
in as boys. It also had changed hands: a wing had been added, and
the double tier of tiny studies made brilliant with electric light.
But the quad and the fives-courts did not look a day older; the ivy
was no thicker round the study windows; and in one boy's castle we
found the traditional print of Charing Cross Bridge which had knocked
about our studies ever since a son of the contractor first sold it
when he left. Nay, more, there was the bald remnant of a stuffed
bird which had been my own daily care when it and I belonged to
Raffles. And when we all. filed in to prayers, through the green
baize door which still separated the master's part of the house from
that of the boys, there was a small boy posted in the passage to
give the sign of silence to the rest assembled in the hall, quite
identically as in the dim old days; the picture was absolutely
unchanged; it was only we who were out of it in body and soul.

On our side of the baize door a fine hospitality and a finer flow
of spirits were the order of the night. There was a sound
representative assortment of quite young Old Boys, to whom ours was
a prehistoric time, and in the trough of their modem chaff and chat
we old stagers might well have been left far astern of the fun. Yet
it was Raffles who was the life and soul of the party, and that not
by meretricious virtue of his cricket. There happened not to be
another cricketer among us, and it was on their own subjects that
Raffles laughed with the lot in turn and in the lump. I never knew
him in quite such form. I will not say he was a boy among them,
but he was that rarer being, the man of the world who can enter
absolutely into the fun and fervor of the salad age. My cares and
my regrets had never been more acute, but Raffles seemed a man
without either in his life.

He was not, however, the hero of the Old Boys' Match, and that was
expected of him by all. the school. There was a hush when he went
in, a groan when he came out. I had no reason to suppose he was not
trying; these things happen to the cricketer who plays out of his
class; but when the great Raffles went on to bowl, and was hit all.
over the field, I was not so sure. It certainly failed to affect
his spirits; he was more brilliant than ever at our hospitable board;
and after dinner came the meeting at which he and Nasmyth were to
speak.

It was a somewhat frigid gathering until Nasmyth rose. We had all.
dined with our respective hosts, and then repaired to this business
in cold blood. Many were lukewarm about it in their hearts; there
was a certain amount of mild prejudice, and a greater amount of
animal indifference, to be overcome in the opening speech. It is
not for me to say whether this was successfully accomplished. I
only know how the temperature of that meeting rose with Nipper
Nasmyth.

And I dare say, in all. the circumstances of the case, his really
was a rather vulgar speech. But it was certainly impassioned, and
probably as purely instinctive as his denunciation of all. the causes
which appeal to the gullible many without imposing upon the
cantankerous few. His arguments, it is true, were merely an
elaboration of those with which he had favored some of us already;
but they were pointed by a concise exposition of the several
definite principles they represented, and barbed with a caustic
rhetoric quite admirable in itself. In a word, the manner was
worthy of the very foundation it sought to shake, or we had never
swallowed such matter without a murmur. As it was, there was a
demonstration in the wilderness when the voice ceased crying. But
we sat in the deeper silence when Raffles rose to reply.

I leaned forward not to lose a word. I knew my Raffles so well
that I felt almost capable of reporting his speech before I heard
it. Never was I more mistaken, even in him! So far from a gibe
for a gibe and a taunt for a taunt, there never was softer answer
than that which A. J. Raffles returned to Nipper Nasmyth before
the staring eyes and startled ears of all. assembled. He courteously
but firmly refused to believe a word his old friend Nasmyth had said
- about himself. He had known Nasmyth for twenty years, and never
had he met a dog who barked so loud and bit so little. The fact
was that he had far too kind a heart to bite at all. Nasmyth might
get up and protest as loud as he liked: the speaker declared he knew
him better than Nasmyth knew himself. He had the necessary defects
of his great qualities. He was only too good a sportsman. He had
a perfect passion for the weaker side. That alone led Nasmyth into
such excesses of language as we had all. heard from his lips that
night. As for Raffles, he concluded his far too genial remarks by
predicting that, whatever Nasmyth might say or think of the new
fund, he would subscribe to it as handsomely as any of us, like
"the generous good chap" that we all. knew him to be.

Even so did Raffles disappoint the Old Boys in the evening as he
had disappointed the school by day. We had looked to him for a
noble raillery, a lofty and loyal disdain, and he had fobbed us
off with friendly personalities not even in impeccable taste.
Nevertheless, this light treatment of a grave offence went far to
restore the natural amenities of the occasion. It was impossible
even for Nasmyth to reply to it as he might to a more earnest
onslaught. He could but smile sardonically, and audibly undertake
to prove Raffles a false prophet; and though subsequent speakers
were less merciful the note was struck, and there was no more bad
blood in the debate. There was plenty, however, in the veins of
Nasmyth, as I was to discover for myself before the night was out.

You might think that in the circumstances he would not have attended
the head master's ball with which the evening ended; but that would
be sadly to misjudge so perverse a creature as the notorious Nipper.
He was probably one of those who protest that there is "nothing
personal" in their most personal attacks. Not that Nasmyth took
this tone about Raffles when he and I found ourselves cheek by jowl
against the ballroom wall; he could forgive his franker critics, but
not the friendly enemy who had treated him so much more gently than
he deserved.

"I seem to have seen you with this great man Raffles," began Nasmyth,
as he overhauled me with his fighting eye. "Do you know him well?"

"Intimately."

"I remember now. You were with him when he forced himself upon me
on the way down yesterday. He had to tell me who he was. Yet he
talks as though we were old friends."

"You were in the upper sixth together," I rejoined, nettled by his
tone.

"What does that matter? I am glad to say I had too much self-respect,
and too little respect for Raffles, ever to be a friend of his then.
I knew too many of the things he did," said Nipper Nasmyth.

His fluent insults had taken my breath. But in a lucky flash I saw
my retort.

"You must have had special opportunities of observation, living in
the town," said I; and drew first blood between the long hair and
the ragged beard; but that was all.

"So he really did get out at nights?" remarked my adversary. "You
certainly give your friend away. What's he doing now?"

I let my eyes follow Raffles round the room before replying. He
was waltzing with a master's wife - waltzing as he did everything
else. Other couples seemed to melt before them. And the woman on
his arm looked a radiant girl.

"I meant in town, or wherever he lives his mysterious life,"
explained Nasmyth, when I told him that he could see for himself.
But his clever tone did not trouble me; it was his epithet that
caused me to prick my ears. And I found some difficulty in
following Raffles right round the room.

"I thought everybody knew what he was doing; he's playing cricket
most of his time," was my measured reply; and if it bore an extra
touch of insolence, I can honestly ascribe that to my nerves.

"And is that all. he does for a living?" pursued my inquisitor keenly.

"You had better ask Raffles himself," said I to that. "It's a pity
you didn't ask him in public, at the meeting!"

But I was beginning to show temper in my embarrassment, and of course
that made Nasmyth the more imperturbable.

"Really, he might be following some disgraceful calling, by the
mystery you make of it!" he exclaimed. "And for that matter I
call first-class cricket a disgraceful calling, when it's followed
by men who ought to be gentlemen, but are really professionals in
gentlemanly clothing. The present craze for gladiatorial
athleticism I regard as one of the great evils of the age; but the
thinly veiled professionalism of the so-called amateur is the
greatest evil of that craze. Men play for the gentlemen and are
paid more than the players who walk out of another gate. In my
time there was none of that. Amateurs were amateurs and sport was
sport; there were no Raffleses in first-class cricket then. I had
forgotten Raffles was a modern first-class cricketer: that explains
him. Rather than see my son such another, do you know what I'd
prefer to see him?"

I neither knew nor cared: yet a wretched premonitory fascination
held me breathless till I was told!.

"I'd prefer to see him a thief!" said Nasmyth savagely; and when
his eyes were done with me, he turned upon his heel. So that ended
that stage of my discomfiture.

It was only to give place to a worse. Was all. this accident or fell
design? Conscience had made a coward of me, and yet what reason
had I to disbelieve the worst? We were pirouetting on the edge of
an abyss; sooner or later the false step must come and the pit
swallow us. I began to wish myself back in London, and I did get
back to my room in our old house. My dancing days were already over;
there I had taken the one resolution to which I remained as true as
better men to better vows; there the painful association was no
mere sense of personal unworthiness. I fell to thinking in my room
of other dances ... and was still smoking the cigarette which
Raffles had taught me to appreciate when I looked up to find him
regarding me from the door. He had opened it as noiselessly as only
Raffles could open doors, and now he closed it in the same
professional fashion.

"I missed Achilles hours ago," said he. "And still he's sulking in
his tent!"

"I have been," I answered, laughing as he could always make me, "but
I'll chuck it if you'll stop and smoke. Our host doesn't mind;
there's an ash-tray provided for the purpose. I ought to be sulking
between the sheets, but I'm ready to sit up with you till morning."

"We might do worse; but, on the other hand, we might do still
better," rejoined Raffles, and for once he resisted the seductive
Sullivan. "As a matter of fact, it's morning now; in another hour
it will be dawn; and where could day dawn better than in Warfield
Woods, or along the Stockley road, or even on the Upper or the
Middle? I don't want to turn in, any more than you do. I may as
well confess that the whole show down here has exalted me more than
anything for years. But if we can't sleep, Bunny, let's have some
fresh air instead."

"Has everybody gone to bed?" I asked.

"Long ago. I was the last in. Why?"

"Only it might sound a little odd, our turning out again, if they
were to hear us."

Raffles stood over me with a smile made of mischief and cunning;
but it was the purest mischief imaginable, the most innocent and
comic cunning.

"They shan't hear us at all., Bunny," said he. "I mean to get out
as I did in the good old nights. I've been spoiling for the chance
ever since I came down. There's not the smallest harm in it now;
and if you'll come with me I'll show you how it used to be done."

"But I know," said I. "Who used to haul up the rope after you,
and let it down again to the minute?"

Raffles looked down on me from lowered lids, over a smile too
humorous to offend.

"My dear good Bunny! And do you suppose that even then I had only
one way of doing a thing? I've had a spare loophole all. my life,
and when you're ready I'll show you what it was when I was here.
Take off those boots, and carry your tennis-shoes; slip on another
coat; put out your light; and I'll meet you on the landing in two
minutes."

He met me with uplifted finger, and not a syllable; and down-stairs
he led me, stocking soles close against the skirting, two feet to
each particular step. It must have seemed child's play to Raffles;
the old precautions were obviously assumed for my entertainment; but
I confess that to me it was all. refreshingly exciting - for once
without a risk of durance if we came to grief! With scarcely a
creak we reached the hall, and could have walked out of the street
door without danger or difficulty. But that would not do for
Raffles. He must needs lead me into the boys' part, through the
green baize door. It took a deal of opening and shutting, but
Raffles seemed to enjoy nothing better than these mock obstacles,
and in a few minutes we were resting with sharp ears in the boys'
hall.