“As I have already noted, our most entertaining adventures from a purely criminal point of view least of all correspond to the modest goals of my notes. Some virtuoso of a crowbar and a master key would have read them with genuine interest in a specialized magazine (if one had been published), but as evidence of unsurpassed, albeit quiet successes, they could seem too mundane, and too confusing, and sometimes completely unworthy and even dangerous. The last two epithets, along with others, even more harsh, more than once came from the obedient pen of well-meaning scribblers and were addressed not so much to Raffles and his deeds as to their chronicler...”