#teddy garland

I can't believe that I just read the final chapter/epilogue of "Mr. Justice Raffles".

This apologia is short but emotional because we have the chance to see Bunny and Teddy many years after this novel and Raffles death. Loneliness is Bunny's companion now and AJ is a memory that still lives in his heart.

Even after all that happened, Teddy and Camilla still remember Raffles as the one man who saved them, and this gives Raffles a slightly heroic tint to his criminal career.

What I really appreciate is how Teddy and Camilla want to show to the world this heroic side of AJ.

"Rather! Camilla and I will both be delighted—so long as you change our names—for we both loved him!" said Teddy Garland.

-- Mr Justice Raffles, chap. X

Yet I could quite understand the mutual attraction between Raffles and this much younger man; indeed he was a mere boy, but like so many of his school he seemed to have a knowledge of the world beyond his years, and withal such a spontaneous spring of sweetness and charm as neither knowledge nor experience could sensibly pollute. And yet I had a shrewd suspicion that wild oats had been somewhat freely sown, and that it was Raffles who had stepped in and taken the sower in hand, and turned him into the stuff of which Blues are made.

[...]

And I could not help wondering, with a discreditable pang, whether his intercourse with that honest lad could have bred in Raffles a remorse for his own misdeeds, such as I myself had often tried, but always failed, to produce.

[...]

"Teddy!" cried Raffles, and took the stairs two at a time. I followed rather heavily. It was not jealousy, but I did feel rather critical of this mushroom intimacy. So I followed up, feeling that the evening was spoilt for me— and God knows I was right!

... in which Bunny is not jealous, mind you... but definitely needs a hug.

or