"That's a nice job," said I. "What can you do?"
"That's what stumps me," said Raffles Holmes, scratching his head in perplexity. "I've set him up in a small tenement down on East Houston Street temporarily, and meanwhile, it's up to me to land him in Sing Sing, where he can live comfortably for a decade or so, and I'm hanged if I know how to do it. He used to be a first-class second-story man, and in his day was an A-1 snatcher, as his name signifies and my father's diaries attest, but I'm afraid his hand is out for a nice job such as I would care to have anything to do with myself."
"Better let him slide, Raffles," said I. "He introduces the third party element into our arrangement, and that's mighty dangerous."
"True—but consider the literary value of a chap that's homesick for jail," he answered, persuasively. "I don't know, but I think he's new."
Ah, the insidious appeal of that man! He knew the crack in my armor, and with neatness and despatch he pierced it, and I fell.
"Well—" I demurred.
"Good," said he. "We'll consider it arranged. I'll fix him out in a week."
Holmes left me at this point, and for two days I heard nothing from him. On the morning of the third day he telephoned me to meet him at the stage-door of the Metropolitan Opera-House at four o'clock. "Bring your voice with you," said he, enigmatically, "we may need it." An immediate explanation of his meaning was impossible, for hardly were the words out of his mouth when he hung up the receiver and cut the connection.
"I wanted to excite your curiosity so that you would be sure to come," he laughed, when I asked his meaning later. "You and I are going to join Mr. Conried's selected chorus of educated persons who want to earn their grand opera instead of paying five dollars a performance for it."
And so we did, although I objected a little at first.