There was one bristling broadside of
revolvers under the longest shelf of closed eyes and swollen throats.
There were festoons of rope-ladders - none so ingenious as ours -
and then at last there was something that the clerk knew all. about.
It was a small tin cigarette-box, and the name upon the gaudy
wrapper was not the name of Sullivan. Yet Raffles and I knew even
more about this exhibit than the clerk.
"There, now," said our guide, "you'll never guess the history of
that! I'll give you twenty guesses, and the twentieth will be no
nearer than the first"
"I'm sure of it, my good fellow," rejoined Raffles, a discreet
twinkle in his eye. "Tell us about it, to save time."
And he opened, as he spoke, his own old twenty-five tin of purely
popular cigarettes; there were a few in it still, but between the
cigarettes were jammed lumps of sugar wadded with cotton-wool. I
saw Raffles weighing the lot in his hand with subtle satisfaction.
But the clerk saw merely the mystification which he desired to
create.
"I thought that'd beat you, sir," said he. "It was an American
dodge.
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