He had at such times a motto of which I might have made earlier use, but the fact is that I have only once before described a downright burglary in which I assisted, and that without knowing it at the time. The most solemn student of these annals cannot affirm that he has cut through many doors in our company, since (what was to me) the maiden effort to which I allude. I, however, have cracked only too many a crib in conjunction with A. J. Raffles, and at the crucial moment he would whisper “Victory or Wormwood Scrubbs, Bunny!” or instead of Wormwood Scrubbs it might be Portland Bill. This time it was neither one nor the other, for with that very word “victory” upon his lips, they whitened and parted with the first taste of defeat. “My hand’s held!” gasped Raffles, and the white of his eyes showed all round the iris, a rarer thing than you may think. At the same moment I heard the shuffling feet and the low, excited young voices on the other side of the door, and a faint light shone round Raffles’s wrist. “Well done, Beefy!” “Hang on to him!” “Good old Beefy!” “Beefy’s got him!” “So have I—so have I!” And Raffles caught my arm with his one free hand. “They’ve got me tight,” he whispered. “I’m done.” “Blaze through the door,” I urged, and might have done it had I been armed. But I never was. It was Raffles who monopolized that risk. “I can’t—it’s the boys—the wrong house!” he whispered. “Curse the fog—it’s done me. But you get out, Bunny, while you can; never mind me; it’s my turn, old chap.” His one hand tightened in affectionate farewell. I put the electric torch in it before I went, trembling in every inch, but without a word. Get out! His turn! Yes, I would get out, but only to come in again, for it was my turn—mine—not his. Would Raffles leave me held by a hand through a hole in a door? What he would have done in my place was the thing for me to do now. I began by diving head-first through the pantry window and coming to earth upon all fours. But even as I stood up, and brushed the gravel from the palms of my hands and the knees of my knickerbockers, I had no notion what to do next. And yet I was halfway to the front door before I remembered the vile crape mask upon my face, and tore it off as the door flew open and my feet were on the steps. “He’s into the next garden,” I cried to a bevy of pyjamas with bare feet and young faces at either end of them. “Who? Who?” said they, giving way before me. “Some fellow who came through one of your windows head-first.” “The other Johnny, the other Johnny,” the cherubs chorused. “Biking past—saw the light—why, what have you there?”