<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN>
<h3>Being the Adventures of</h3>
<h3>An Amateur Crackswoman<br/><br/></h3>
<h2>Narrated by</h2>
<h3>Bunny<br/><br/></h3>
<h2>Edited by</h2>
<h3>John Kendrick Bangs<br/><br/></h3>
<h2>Illustrated by</h2>
<h3>Albert Levering<br/><br/></h3>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<h3>New York and London</h3>
<h3>Harper & Brothers Publishers</h3>
<h3>1905<br/><br/></h3>
<h4>Copyright, 1905, by <span class="smcap">Harper & Brothers</span>.</h4>
<h4><i>All rights reserved.</i></h4>
<h4>Published October, 1905.</h4>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="Contents" id="Contents"></SPAN>Contents</h2>
<div class='center'>
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="">
<tr><td align='left'><SPAN href="#I"><b>I. <span class="smcap">The Adventure of the <i>Herald</i> Personal</span></b></SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><SPAN href="#II"><b>II. <span class="smcap">The Adventure of the Newport Villa</span></b></SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><SPAN href="#III"><b>III. <span class="smcap">The Adventure of Mrs. Gaster's Maid</span></b></SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><SPAN href="#IV"><b>IV. <span class="smcap">The Pearl Rope of Mrs. Gushington-andrews</span></b></SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><SPAN href="#V"><b>V. <span class="smcap">The Adventure of the Steel Bonds</span></b></SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><SPAN href="#VI"><b>VI. <span class="smcap">The Adventure of the Fresh-air Fund</span></b></SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><SPAN href="#VII"><b>VII. <span class="smcap">The Adventure of Mrs. Rockerbilt's Tiara</span></b></SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><SPAN href="#VIII"><b>VIII. <span class="smcap">The Adventure of The Carnegie Library</span></b></SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><SPAN href="#IX"><b>IX. <span class="smcap">The Adventure of the Hold-up</span></b></SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><SPAN href="#X"><b>X. <span class="smcap">The Adventure of Mrs. Shadd's Musicale</span></b></SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><SPAN href="#XI"><b>XI. <span class="smcap">The Adventure of Mrs. Innitt's Cook</span></b></SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><SPAN href="#XII"><b>XII. <span class="smcap">The Last Adventure</span></b></SPAN></td></tr>
</table></div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_1" id="Page_1"></SPAN></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="I" id="I"></SPAN>I</h2>
<h2>THE ADVENTURE OF THE <i>HERALD</i> PERSONAL</h2>
<p>That I was in a hard case is best attested by the fact that when I had
paid for my Sunday <i>Herald</i> there was left in my purse just one
tuppence-ha'penny stamp and two copper cents, one dated 1873, the other
1894. The mere incident that at this hour eighteen months later I can
recall the dates of these coins should be proof, if any were needed, of
the importance of the coppers in my eyes, and therefore of the relative
scarcity of funds in my possession.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_2" id="Page_2"></SPAN></span> Raffles was dead—killed as you may
remember at the battle of Spion Kop—and I, his companion, who had never
known want while his deft fingers were able to carry out the plans of
that insinuating and marvellous mind of his, was now, in the vernacular
of the American, up against it. I had come to the United States, not
because I had any liking for that country or its people, who, to tell
the truth, are too sharp for an ordinary burglar like myself, but
because with the war at an end I had to go somewhere, and English soil
was not safely to be trod by one who was required for professional
reasons to evade the eagle eye of Scotland Yard until the Statute of
Limitations began to have some bearing upon his case. That last affair
of Raffles and mine, wherein we had successfully got away with the
diamond stomacher of the duchess of Herringdale, was still a live matter
in British detective circles, and<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_3" id="Page_3"></SPAN></span> the very audacity of the crime had
definitely fastened the responsibility for it upon our shoulders. Hence
it was America for me, where one could be as English as one pleased
without being subject to the laws of his Majesty, King Edward VII., of
Great Britain and Ireland and sundry other possessions upon which the
sun rarely if ever sets. For two years I had led a precarious existence,
not finding in the land of silk and money quite as many of those
opportunities to add to the sum of my prosperity as the American War
Correspondent I had met in the Transvaal led me to expect. Indeed, after
six months of successful lecturing on the subject of the Boers before
various lyceums in the country, I was reduced to a state of penury which
actually drove me to thievery of the pettiest and most vulgar sort.
There was little in the way of mean theft that I did not commit. During
the<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_4" id="Page_4"></SPAN></span> coal famine, for instance, every day passing the coal-yards to and
fro, I would appropriate a single piece of the precious anthracite until
I had come into possession of a scuttleful, and this I would sell to the
suffering poor at prices varying from three shillings to two dollars and
a half—a precarious living indeed. The only respite I received for six
months was in the rape of the hansom-cab, which I successfully carried
through one bitter cold night in January. I hired the vehicle at Madison
Square and drove to a small tavern on the Boston Post Road, where the
icy cold of the day gave me an excuse for getting my cabby drunk in the
guise of kindness. Him safely disposed of in a drunken stupor, I drove
his jaded steed back to town, earned fifteen dollars with him before
daybreak, and then, leaving the cab in the Central Park, sold the horse
for eighteen dollars to a snow-removal contractor<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_5" id="Page_5"></SPAN></span> over on the East
Side. It was humiliating to me, a gentleman born, and a partner of so
illustrious a person as the late A. J. Raffles, to have to stoop to such
miserable doings to keep body and soul together, but I was forced to
confess that, whatever Raffles had left to me in the way of example, I
was not his equal either in the conception of crime or in the nerve to
carry a great enterprise through. My biggest coups had a way of failing
at their very beginning—which was about the only blessing I enjoyed,
since none of them progressed far enough to imperil my freedom, and,
lacking confederates, I was of course unable to carry through the
profitable series of abductions in the world of High Finance that I had
contemplated. Hence my misfortunes, and now on this beautiful Sunday
morning, penniless but for the coppers and the postage-stamp, with no
breakfast in sight, and, fortunately enough,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_6" id="Page_6"></SPAN></span> not even an appetite, I
turned to my morning paper for my solace.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><SPAN name="ILL_003" id="ILL_003"></SPAN> <ANTIMG src="images/ill_003.jpg" width-obs="700" height-obs="456" alt=""THIS I WOULD SELL TO THE SUFFERING POOR"" title="" /> <span class="caption">"THIS I WOULD SELL TO THE SUFFERING POOR"</span></div>
<p>Running my eye up and down the personal column, which has for years been
my favorite reading of Sunday mornings, I found the usual assortment of
matrimonial enterprises recorded: pathetic appeals from P. D. to meet Q.
on the corner of Twenty-third Street at three; imploring requests from
J. A. K. to return at once to "His Only Mother," who promises to ask no
questions; and finally—could I believe my eyes now riveted upon the
word?—my own sobriquet, printed as boldly and as plainly as though I
were some patent cure for all known human ailments. It seemed
incredible, but there it was beyond all peradventure:</p>
<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Wanted</span>.—A Butler. BUNNY preferred. Apply to Mrs. A. J. Van
Raffles, Bolivar Lodge, Newport, R.I."</p>
</div>
<p>To whom could that refer if not to myself, and what could it mean?<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_7" id="Page_7"></SPAN></span> Who
was this Mrs. A. J. Van Raffles?—a name so like that of my dead friend
that it seemed almost identical. My curiosity was roused to concert
pitch. If this strange advertiser should be— But no, she would not send
for me after that stormy interview in which she cast me over to take the
hand of Raffles: the brilliant, fascinating Raffles, who would have won
his Isabella from Ferdinand, Chloe from her Corydon, Pierrette from
Pierrot—ay, even Heloise from Abelard. I never could find it in my
heart to blame Henriette for losing her heart to him, even though she
had already promised it to me, for I myself could not resist the
fascination of the man at whose side I faithfully worked even after he
had stolen from me this dearest treasure of my heart. And yet who else
could it be if not the lovely Henriette? Surely the combination of
Raffles, with or without the Van, and Bunny was not so usual as to<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_8" id="Page_8"></SPAN></span>
permit of so remarkable a coincidence.</p>
<p>"I will go to Newport at once," I cried, rising and pacing the floor
excitedly, for I had many times, in cursing my loneliness, dreamed of
Henriette, and had oftener and oftener of late found myself wondering
what had become of her, and then the helplessness of my position burst
upon me with full force. How should I, the penniless wanderer in New
York, get to Bolivar Lodge at Newport? It takes money in this sordid
country to get about, even as it does in Britain—in sorry truth, things
in detail differ little whether one lives under a king or a president;
poverty is quite as hard to bear, and free passes on the railroad are
just as scarce.</p>
<p>"Curses on these plutocrats!" I muttered, as I thought of the railway
directors rolling in wealth, running trains filled with empty seats to
and<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_9" id="Page_9"></SPAN></span> from the spot that might contain my fortune, and I unable to avail
myself of them for the lack of a paltry dollar or two. But suddenly the
thought flashed over me—telegraph collect. If it is she, she will
respond at once.</p>
<p>And so it was that an hour later the following message was ticked over
the wires:</p>
<div class="blockquot"><p>"Personal to-day's <i>Herald</i> received. Telegraph railway fare and I
will go to you instantly.</p>
</div>
<p><span style="margin-left: 23em;">(Signed),</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 28em;"><span class="smcap">Bunny</span>."</span><br/></p>
<p>For three mortal hours I paced the streets feverishly awaiting the
reply, and at two-thirty it came, disconcerting enough in all
conscience:</p>
<div class="blockquot"><p>"If you are not a bogus Bunny you will know how to raise the cash.
If you are a bogus Bunny I don't want you."</p>
</div>
<p>It was simple, direct, and convincing, and my heart fluttered like the
drum-beat's morning call to action the moment I read it.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_10" id="Page_10"></SPAN></span></p>
<div class="figright"><SPAN name="ILL_004" id="ILL_004"></SPAN> <ANTIMG src="images/ill_004.jpg" width-obs="383" height-obs="600" alt=""THE WHOLE CONTENTS AND THE PLATTER AS WELL FELL AT MY FEET"" title="" /> <span class="caption">"THE WHOLE CONTENTS AND THE PLATTER AS WELL FELL AT MY FEET"</span></div>
<p>"By Jove!" I cried. "The woman is right, of course. It must be
Henriette, and I'll go to her if I have to rob a nickel-in-the-slot
machine."</p>
<p>It was as of old. Faint-hearted I always was until some one gave me a
bit of encouragement. A word of praise or cheer from Raffles in the old
days and I was ready to batter down Gibraltar, a bit of discouragement
and a rag was armor-plate beside me.</p>
<p>"'If you are not a bogus Bunny you will know,'" I read, spreading the
message out before me. "That is to say, <i>she</i> believes that if I am
really myself I can surmount the insurmountable. Gad! I'll do it." And I
set off hot-foot up Fifth Avenue, hoping to discover, or by cogitation
in the balmy air of the spring-time afternoon, to conceive of some plan
to relieve my necessities. But, somehow or other, it wouldn't come.
There were no pockets about to be picked in the ordinary way. I hadn't
the fare for<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_11" id="Page_11"></SPAN></span> a ride on the surface or elevated cars, where I might have
found an opportunity to relieve some traveller of his purse, and as for
snatching such a thing from some shopper, it was Sunday and the women
who would have been an easy prey on a bargain-day carried neither purse
nor side-bag with them. I was in despair, and then the pealing bells of
St. Jondy's, the spiritual home of the multi-millionaires of New York,
rang out the call to afternoon service. It was like an invitation—the
way was clear. My plan was laid in an instant, and it worked beyond my
most hopeful anticipations. Entering the church, I was ushered to a pew
about halfway up the centre aisle—despite my poverty, I had managed to
keep myself always well-groomed, and no one would have guessed, to look
at my faultless frock-coat and neatly creased trousers, at my finely
gloved hand and polished top-hat, that my pockets held<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_12" id="Page_12"></SPAN></span> scarcely a brass
farthing. The service proceeded. A good sermon on the Vanity of Riches
found lodgment in my ears, and then the supreme moment came. The
collection-plate was passed, and, gripping my two pennies in my hand, I
made as if to place them in the salver, but with studied awkwardness I
knocked the alms-platter from the hands of the gentleman who passed it.
The whole contents and the platter as well fell at my feet, and from my
lips in reverent whispers poured forth no end of most abject apologies.
Of course I assisted in recovering the fallen bills and coins, and in
less time than it takes to tell it the vestryman was proceeding on his
way up the aisle, gathering in the contributions from other generously
disposed persons as he went, as unconsciously as though the
<i>contretemps</i> had never occurred, and happily unaware that out of the
moneys cast to the floor by my awkward act<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_13" id="Page_13"></SPAN></span> two yellow-backed
fifty-dollar bills, five half-dollars, and a dime remained behind under
the hassock at my feet, whither I had managed to push them with my toe
while offering my apologies.</p>
<p>An hour later, having dined heartily at Delsherrico's, I was comfortably
napping in a Pullman car on my way to the Social Capital of the United
States.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_14" id="Page_14"></SPAN></span></p>
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