Raffle

“ At the moment of seizure I was standing in front of a large show-window, in which were a number of oil paintings, all of them very fresh and bright. "How would it do," thought I to myself, "to buy a picture at a moderate price and put it up at a raffle? People who are not willing to give money outright will often enter into a scheme of this kind. ”

“ I may remark that in nearly all raffles got up in this manner, the article raffled for is generally something coveted by a working man, but not so indispensably necessary to him, that he feels justified in expending his money upon it. This fact seems well enough known to the street-sellers who frequent public-houses with their wares. I inquired of the informant in question if he had ever tried to get up a raffle of his table-covers in a coffee-shop as well as a public-house. ”

“ Many a person would not accept an outright gift, even in case of sickness or death, will permit friends to raffle off a piano or a bicycle for a good round price in order to obtain a fund to tide him over an emergency. To buy tickets for this kind of a raffle is praiseworthy.
Raffle is Lottery by Law.
But sharpers are not above getting money by the same means. If a strange man, or a doubtful looking woman, wants to sell you a chance for the benefit of "an old soldier," or a "little orphan girl," or a "striker out of work," it might pay you to investigate. ”

“ Prescribe the conditions under which a qualified organization may sell raffle tickets for a raffle drawing that will be held outside the Commonwealth pursuant to subsection B of § 18.2-340.26. 8. Prescribe the conditions under which persons who are bona fide members of a qualified organization or a child, above the age of 13 years, of a bona fide member of such organization may participate in the conduct or operation of bingo games. ”

“ One of Nora's brothers had to be sent down town for a fresh supply of novelties for the surprise table, as not only the children but their parents found great amusement in opening those bright-colored packages. Belle and some of the older girls regretted that there was nothing to raffle.
"Don't you honestly think that it is much more exciting to get a thing in that way than to buy it just as you would in a shop?" asked Edith, who had been influenced by Belle to try to coax Mrs. Blair to change her opinion in the matter of raffles. ”

“ Table-covers are now frequently disposed of by raffle. “I very seldom sell in the streets,” said one man, “though I one evening cleared 4s. by standing near the Vinegar-works, in the City-road, and selling to gents on their way home from the city. The public-house trade is the best, and indeed in winter evenings, and after dark generally, there’s no other. I get rid of more by raffling than by sale. On Saturday evening I had raffles for two covers, which cost me 1s. 4d. ”

“ It’s just the sort of thing to get off in a raffle on Saturday night, or any time when mechanics have money. A man thinks—leastways I’ve thought so myself, when I’ve been in a public-house raffle—now I’ve spent more money than I ought to, and there’s the old woman to face ”

“ There were the same towels and tidies that had been there two months before, or what seemed the same. Georgie recollected similar articles worked by people whom she knew about, for which she had been asked to buy raffle tickets. "She can't get any one to buy it," had been said. ”

“ One of the attractive forms of the raffle ticket game is valuing the tickets at from 1 cent up to as high as desired. The man who buys a chance draws a little envelope containing his number. If he is lucky and draws a small number he is encouraged to try again. This is a sort of double gamble, and many men cannot resist the temptation to speculate upon the chances, simply in order to have the fun of drawing the little envelopes.
Of course, many of the raffles are for cases of genuine charity, and it is an easy way to raise a fund for some worthy object. ”

“ It was Raffles himself!
How it was possible, I did not pause to ask myself; if one man on earth could annihilate space and time, it was the man lying senseless at my feet; and that was Raffles, without an instant's doubt. ”

“ The last of all these tales of Raffles is from a fresher and a sweeter pen. I give it exactly as it came to me, in a letter which meant more to me than it can possibly mean to any other reader. And yet, it may stand for something with those for whom these pale reflections have a tithe of the charm that the real man had for me; and it is to leave such persons thinking yet a little better of him (and not wasting another thought on me) that I am permitted to retail the very last word about their hero and mine. ”

“ Between three and four, however, Raffles, suddenly looking at his watch, packed me off in a hurry to the other end of London for my things.
“I’m afraid you must be famishing, Bunny. It’s a fact that I eat very little, and that at odd hours, but I ought not to have forgotten you. Get yourself a snack outside, but not a square meal if you can resist one. We’ve got to celebrate this day this night!” ”

“ Gift concerts, gift enterprises and raffles, sometimes in aid of religious or charitable objects, but often for less worthy purposes, lotteries, prize packages, etc., are all devices to obtain money without value received. ”

“ Raffles was the only man who could get a wicket up at Lord's, and I never once went to see him play. Against Yorkshire, however, he helped himself to a hundred runs as well; and that brought Raffles round to me, on his way home to the Albany.
"We must dine and celebrate the rare event," said he. "A century takes it out of one at my time of life; and you, Bunny, you look quite as much in need of your end of a worthy bottle. ”

“ On the other hand, the eyes themselves were alight and alert as ever; they were still keen and gray and gleaming, like finely tempered steel. Even the mouth, with a cigarette to close it, was the mouth of Raffles and no other: strong and unscrupulous as the man himself. ”

“ The gold may not be so soft as it appears, but It certainly looks as though you could bite off the business ends of the spoons, and stop your own teeth in doing so. Nor should I care to be seen wearing one of the rings; but the greatest fraud of all (from the aforesaid standpoint) is assuredly that very cup of which Raffles had spoken. Moreover, he felt this himself.
"Why, it's as thin as paper," said he, "and enamelled like a middle-aged lady of quality! But, by Jove, it's one of the most beautiful things I ever saw in my life, Bunny. ”

“ And on these refreshing lines our plan of campaign was gradually developed and elaborated into that finished study on which Raffles would rely like any artist of the footlights. None were more capable than he of coping with the occasion as it rose, of rising himself with the emergency of the moment, of snatching a victory from the very dust of defeat. ”

“ I was recalled to this planet by a deluge of gems from the jeweller’s bag. They lay alight in their cases like the electric lamps above. We all three put our heads together over them, myself without the slightest clew as to what was coming, but not unprepared for violent crime. One does not do eighteen months for nothing.
“Right away,” Raffles was saying. “We’ll choose for her, and you’ll change anything she don’t like. ”

“ It certainly seemed a good house.
“She’s going to let down the blind!” whispered Raffles, in high excitement. “No, confound them, they’ve told her not to. Mark down her necklace, Bunny, and invoice his stud. What a brute he looks! But I like the table, and that’s her show. She has the taste; but he must have money. See the festive picture over the sideboard? Looks to me like a Jacques Saillard. But that silver-table would be good enough for me.”
“Get on,” said I. “You’re in a bath-chair.”
“But the whole square’s at dinner! We should have the ball at our feet. ”

“ A red-faced barrel of a boy did all the holding, one hand round the wrist, the other palm to palm, and his knees braced up against the panel. Another was rendering ostentatious but ineffectual aid, and three or four others danced about in their pyjamas. After all, they were not more than four to one. I had raised my voice, so that Raffles might hear me and take heart, and now I raised it again. Yet to this day I cannot account for my inspiration, that proved nothing less.
“Don’t talk so loud,” they were crying below their breath; “don’t wake ’em upstairs, this is our show.” ”

“ Raffles smiled as he shook his head.
"No, no, Bunny; I prolonged the visit, as I paid it, of my own accord. As for my reasons, they are far too many for me to tell you them all; they rather weighed upon me as I walked out; but you'll see them for yourself if you turn round."
I was standing with my back to the chair in which I had been asleep; behind the chair was the round lodging-house table; and there, reposing on the cloth with the whiskey and sandwiches, was the whole collection of Raffles Relics which had occupied the lid of the silver-chest in the Black Museum at Scotland Yard! ”

“ Until now the crammer had the centre of the stage, but at this point Raffles usurped a place which was always his at will. People would wait for what he had to say, as these people waited now for the simplest and most natural thing in the world. ”

“ Amongst the few remaining of the popular diversions that used to be permitted in Carnival are the public tombole or raffles, held on Sundays and Feste in the principal square of the town, to which the lowest of the people eagerly resort. ”

“ Raffles is amazing; his resource is perfect; he talks like a gentleman and acts like one, except when occupied with pressing business in another man’s house at midnight, and naturally he has a 'cool nerve,’ a nerve positively arctic. ”

“ I breathe more freely when I reach a book-lined library where a mere handful of men do not overflow the Persian rug before the fire. One of them is Raffles, who is talking to a large man with the brow of a demi-god and the eyes and jowl of a degenerate bulldog. ”

“ There's not one in a thousand who would do as you've done, and not one in a million who would do it anonymously."
"But what makes you think I did it, Raffles?"
"Everybody is saying so. You will find it all over the place when you get back. You will find yourself the most popular man down there, Nasmyth!" ”

“ Try down the Thames, in some quiet nook that a literary man would naturally select. I've often thought that more use might be made of a boat, while the family are at dinner, than there ever has been yet. If Raffles is to come to life, old chap, he shall go a-Raffling for all he's worth! There's something to be done with a bicycle, too. Try Ham Common or Roehampton, or some such sleepy hollow a trifle off the line ”

“ Steady, Bunny, for God's sake. It's slow march—for our lives." There was this much management. The rest was our colossal luck. A hansom was being paid off at the foot of the steps outside, and in we jumped, Raffles shouting "Charing Cross!" ”

“ It was little after nine when we crawled together into the gardens; by half-past my invalid had had enough, and out he tottered on my arm; a cab, a message to our coachman, a timely train to Baker Street, another cab, and we were at the British Museum—brisk pedestrians now—not very many minutes after the opening hour of 10 a. m.
It was one of those glowing days which will not be forgotten by many who were in town at the time. The Diamond Jubilee was upon us, and Queen's weather had already set in. Raffles, indeed, declared it was as hot as Italy and Australia put together ”

“ But Raffles raised his eyebrows an eloquent half-inch.
"As much, my dear Bunny? He is not only in it, but of it there's no comparison between us there. Society is in rings like a target, and we never were in the bull's-eye, however thick you may lay on the ink! ”

“ Why, sir, I remember one Monday evening four or five months back, going into a parlour, not a tap-room, mind, where was respectable mechanics. They got to play with me, and got keen, and played until my stock was all gone. If one man stopped raffling, another took his place. I can’t recollect how many ornaments I raffled, but I cleared rather better than 3s. 6d. When there was no ornaments left they gave me 1d. a piece—there was eleven of them then—and a pint of beer to let them have the roulette till 12 o’clock; and away they went at it for beer and screws, and bets of 1d. ”

“ He packed necklet, ring, and star, with his own hands, in cotton-wool; and the cigarette-box held them so easily that at the last moment, when the box was closed, and the string ready. Raffles very nearly added a diamond bee-brooch at £51 10s. This temptation, however, he ultimately overcame, to the other's chagrin. The cigarette-box was tied up, and the string sealed, oddly enough, with the diamond of the ring that had been bought and paid for. ”

“ A boy came up whistling and leaving papers on the mats; it was getting on for eight o’clock, and the whiskey and soda of half-past twelve stood untouched and stagnant in the tumbler. If the worst had happened to Raffles, I felt that I would either never drink again, or else seldom do anything else.
Meanwhile I could not even break my fast, but roamed the flat in a misery not to be described, my very linen still unchanged, my cheeks and chin now tawny from the unwholesome night. How long would it go on? I wondered for a time. Then I changed my tune: how long could I endure it? ”

“ They never do. I thought for a moment that Raffles was going to strike me—for the first and last time in his life. He could if he liked. My blood was up. I was ready to send him to the devil. And I emphasized my offence by nodding and shrugging toward a pair of very large Indian clubs that stood in the fender, on either side of the chimney up which I had presumed to glance.
In an instant Raffles had seized the clubs, and was whirling them about his gray head in a mixture of childish pique and puerile bravado which I should have thought him altogether above. ”

“ I had decent clothes to my back, with money, as I say, in most of the pockets, and more freedom to spend it than was possible in the constant society of a man whose personal liberty depended on a universal supposition that he was dead. Raffles was as bold as ever, and I as fond of him, but whereas he would run any risk in a professional exploit, there were many innocent recreations still open to me which would have been sheer madness in him. He could not even watch a match, from the sixpenny seats, at Lord’s cricket-ground, where the Gentlemen were every year in a worse way without him. ”