Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1906-04-10
RaffleS, Gbe Amateur CraCkSrnan
By E. ". HCRNUNC

,an. as Ill aIrala you know, my poo:. dear fellow. l tell you am dead and my one terror is of coming 10 life again by accident. Can't you see? l simply dare not show my nose out of ioors--hy day. You have no idea of the number of perfectly innocent things a dead man daren't do. l can't even smoke Sullvans, because no one man was ever so partial to them as was in my lifetime. and you never know when you may start a ciew.'
 What brought you to these man. Sions!'
 "I fancied a flat. and man recom- mended these on the boat Such a good chap Bunny He was my refer- "nce when it came to signing the lease. You see. landed on a streteher- most pathetic case: old Australian without ;t friend ill old country: ordered Enga- dine as last chance: no go; not an earthly: sentimental wish to die in London-that's the history of N1r Ma turin If it doesn't hit you hard, Bun ny. you're tl.e first. Pnt f hit friend Theobald hardest of all I'm an in- come to him. ! believe he's going to marry on me"
 Does he guess there's nothing wrong:"
 sNnoWs, bless you! But he doesn't kaaw l know he knows, and there isn a disease in the dictionary that he hasn't treated me for since he's had uie iii hand To do him justice, I be- lieve he thinks lie q hypochondriac of tue first water, but that young man will go far if he keeps on the wicket. He bas spent half his nights up here at guineas apiece
 "Guineas must be plentiful, old chap"
 They have been, Bunny I can't say more. But don't see why they shouldn't be again
 l WAS not going to inquire where the guineas came from. -As if l cared :. But l did ask old Rallies how in the world he had got upon my tracks, and thereby drew the sort of smile with and old ladies nod their noses Raf- tles merely produced d perfect oval of blue smoke before replying.
 II was waiting for you to ask that 1 Bunny It's q long time since 1 did anything upon which l plume myself more Of course in the first place l spotted you 1t once by these prison articles They were not signed, but the fist was the fist of my sitting rab. bit'
 But who gave you my address?'
 "l wheelied it out of your excellent editor. Called on him at dead of night, when l occasionally go ateld like oth- CT ghosts, and wept it out of him ill five minutes. l was your only relative. Your name was not your own name. If he insisted would give him mine. He didn't insist, Bunny, and I danced down his stairs with your address in my pocket
 Hast nightT"
 "No last week.
 And so the advertisement was yours as well as the telegram"
 1 had of course forgotten both in the high excitement of the hour or should scarcely have announced my belated discovery with such an air. As it was. l made Rallies look at me as l had known him to look before, and the droop of his eyelids began to sting.
 "Why all this subtlety?' petulantly exclaimed. Why couldn't you come straightaway to me in cah!'
 He did not inform me that l was | l., To T i'd od n..S me as his good rabbit. He was silent for time, and then spoke in q tone which made me ashamed of mine.
 You see, there are two or three of me now, Bunny. Ones at the bottom of the Mediterranean and ones an old Austra !!an deSirouS of dying in the old country, but in no immediate dan- ger of dying anywhere The old Aus t,.lian didn't know soul in town. He's got to be consistent or hes done This sitter '!heabald is h.; only friend and has seen rather too much of him. Ordinary dl:st won't do for his eyes 1 Begin to see? To pick you out of & crowd that was the game: to let ola 'rheolall help to pick you, bette" still! To start with, he was dead afsainst my having anyh ody at all; wanted ne az to himself na; uiall but anything rath- l CT than xii! the g po;>. So he is to have d flyer d weei. WIie he keeps me alive, and he's going t3 be married next month That's a pity in some ways. but good thing in others. He will want more money than he foresees, and he may always be of use to Us in a pinch. Meanwhile he eats out of my hand"
 I complimented Rallies on the mere composition of his telegram, with half the characteristics of my distinguished kinsman squeezed into a dozen odd words. and let him know how the old ruffian had really treated me. Rallies