"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.