All.
the inconvenience of the new conditions fell on him. I had purged
my known offences by imprisonment, whereas Raffles was merely
supposed to have escaped punishment in death. The result was that
I could rush in where Raffles feared to tread, and was his
plenipotentiary in all. honest dealings with the outer world. It
could not but gall him to be so dependent upon me, and it was for
me to minimize the humiliation by scrupulously avoiding the least
semblance of an abuse of that power which I now had over him.
Accordingly, though with much misgiving, I did his ticklish behest
in Fleet Street, where, despite my past, I was already making a
certain lowly footing for myself. Success followed as it will when
one longs to fail; and one fine evening I returned to Ham Common
with a card from the Convict Supervision Office, New Scotland Yard,
which I treasure to this day. I am surprised to see that it was
undated, and might still almost "Admit Bearer to see the Museum,"
to say nothing of the bearer's friends, since my editor's name
"and party" is scrawled beneath the legend.
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