Raffles, Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman

MP3 Audio CD. Raffles, Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman

RAFFLES



NO SINECURE


I

I am still uncertain which surprised me more, the telegram calling my
attention to the advertisement, or the advertisement itself. The
telegram is before me as I write. It would appear to have been handed
in at Vere Street at eight o'clock in the morning of May 11, 1897, and
received before half-past at Holloway B.O. And in that drab region it
duly found me, unwashen but at work before the day grew hot and my
attic insupportable.

"See Mr. Maturin's advertisement Daily Mail might suit you earnestly
beg try will speak if necessary ---- ----"

I transcribe the thing as I see it before me, all in one breath that
took away mine; but I leave out the initials at the end, which
completed the surprise. They stood very obviously for the knighted
specialist whose consulting-room is within a cab-whistle of Vere
Street, and who once called me kinsman for his sins. More recently he
had called me other names. I was a disgrace, qualified by an adjective
which seemed to me another. I had made my bed, and I could go and lie
and die in it. If I ever again had the insolence to show my nose in
that house, I should go out quicker than I came in. All this, and
more, my least distant relative could tell a poor devil to his face;
could ring for his man, and give him his brutal instructions on the
spot; and then relent to the tune of this telegram! I have no phrase
for my amazement. I literally could not believe my eyes. Yet their
evidence was more and more conclusive: a very epistle could not have
been more characteristic of its sender. Meanly elliptical, ludicrously
precise, saving half-pence at the expense of sense, yet paying like a
man for "Mr." Maturi