"Seven guineas! So be it. You can suggest that, unless you get the cash, you would see Moore." "Corker, D.D.? I'm on." "Or Bourne, senior." "The shaver's brother. I'm tumbling to the dodge." "Bourne will curl up at this." "Naturally." "But you're still the blood-thirsty Jew." "Moses, and Aaron, and the rest." "You'll suggest at last that I be tackled for a loan." "And you'll lend it him!" said Raffles, with an unspeakable leer. "The business wants careful handling, remember. Young Bourne will think twice about borrowing, and, perhaps, if he could keep me out of it, would stand your racket, or Corker's either. So drive him lightly." "You'll see him on the borrowing tack to-morrow, Mr. Acting." "And the rest is my business." "Where do I come in?" "You can cleave to the seven guineas--if you earn 'em." "Seven pounds ten, Mr. Acting." "Seven pound seven, Mr. Raffles. Your own proposal." "Orl right," said Raffles, resignedly. "I think I know them ropes." "Good!" said Acton. "Then you can scuttle now to Rotherhithe, or where the deuce else you like. I'm off." Acton wheeled out his bicycle and melted into the gathering dark, and his jackal lurched off to the station and reached Rotherhithe to dream of his seven guineas which he was going to get. Raffles felt sure of those seven guineas. CHAPTER XV GRIM'S SUSPICIONS As I said before, Jack Bourne, after the first bloom of his forbidden pleasures had worn off, rather repented of the Raffles' connection, and would gladly have exchanged it for the old, easy, open, and above-board society of his chums. Grim, Rogers, Wilson, Poulett, etc., were, on their side, rather sore at Jack's continual desertion of them and their causes. They had just seen him pedalling easily after Acton, throwing them a rather mirthless joke as he ran past, and they had, naturally, held a council to consider matters. "Wherever can the beggar get to is what I want to know," said Wilson. "Can any one tell me what he wants with Acton?" said Grim. "I think that it's Acton that wants him," said Rogers. "Come to think of it, Grimmy, you're Acton's man. Why doesn't he lag you?" "Grimmy's not to be trusted. He'd read the _billet-doux_" "I don't believe that there's any notes, Wilson," said Grim, impressively, "in this business. It's something deeper than that." "What's the mystery, Mr. Grimmy Sherlock Combs?" "Poachin'," said Grim, solemnly. "What!" exclaimed the other, with breathless interest. "Dunno, quite," said Grim; "but that young ass dropped a cartridge from his pocket the other day." "There's nothing to poach here, Grimmy." "There's Pettigrew's pheasants," said Grim, mysteriously. "But you don't shoot them in March." "_We_ don't, Poulett, but poachers do." "Tisn't likely that Acton----" "Well, don't know," said Rogers, reflectively. "He's lived so long in France, where they shoot robins and nightingales, that he'll not know." "But Bourne would."