"So you and Nipper had a word--or was it words? I saw you out of the tail of my eye when I was dancing, and I heard you out of the tail of my ear. It sounded like words, Bunny, and I thought I caught my name. He's the most consistent man I know, and the least altered from a boy. But he'll subscribe all right, you'll see, and be very glad I made him."
I whispered back that I did not believe it for a moment. Raffles had not heard all Nasmyth had said of him. And neither would he listen to the little I meant to repeat to him; he would but reiterate a conviction so chimerical to my mind that I interrupted in my turn to ask him what ground he had for it.
"I've told you already," said Raffles. "I mean to make him."
"But how?" I asked. "And when, and where?"
"At Philippi, Bunny, where I said I'd see him. What a rabbit you are at a quotation!
"'And I think that the field of Philippi Was where Cæsar came to an end; But who gave old Brutus the tip, I Can't comprehend!'
"You may have forgotten your Shakespeare, Bunny, but you ought to remember that."
And I did, vaguely, but had no idea what it or Raffles meant, as I plainly told him.
"The theatre of war," he answered--"and here we are at the stage door!"
Raffles had stopped suddenly in his walk. It was the last dark hour of the summer night, but the light from a neighboring lamp-post showed me the look on his face as he turned.
"I think you also inquired when," he continued. "Well, then, this minute--if you will give me a leg up!"
And behind him, scarcely higher than his head, and not even barred, was a wide window with a wire blind, and the name of Nasmyth among others lettered in gold upon the wire.
"This instant, if you'll help me; in five or ten minutes, if you won't."
"Surely you didn't bring the--the tools?"
"Not the whole outfit, Bunny. But you never know when you mayn't want one or two. I'm only thankful I didn't leave the lot behind this time. I very nearly did."
"I must say I thought you would, coming down here," I said reproachfully.
"But you ought to be glad I didn't," he rejoined with a smile. "It's going to mean old Nasmyth's subscription to the Founder's Fund, and that's to be a big one, I promise you! The lucky thing is that I went so far as to bring my bunch of safe-keys. Now, are you going to help me use them, or are you not? If so, now's your minute; if not, clear out and be----"