ing?"

"Yes, sir. This morning, early."

"This morning! Sure it wasn't yesterday?"

"Am I sure? Didn't I help him to the street-car and hand him his little
package? That sick he was he couldn't hardly walk alone."

Average Jones pondered a moment. "Do you think he could have passed the
night here?"

"I know he did," was the prompt response. "The scrubwoman heard him when
she came this morning."

"Heard him?"

"Yes' sir. Sobbing, like."

The nerves of Average Jones gave a sharp "kickback," like a mis-cranked
motor-car. His trend of thought had suddenly been reversed. The devious
and scientific slayer of Telfik Bey in tears? It seemed completely out
of the picture.

"You may go," said he, and seating himself at the desk, proceeded to an
examination of his newly acquired property. The newspapers in the scrap
basket, mainly copies of the Evening Register, seemed to contain, upon
cursory examination, nothing germane to the issue. But, scattered among
them, the searcher found a number of fibrous chips. They were short and
thick; such chips as might be made by cutting a bamboo pole into cross
lengths, convenient for carrying.

"The 'spirit-wand,"' observed Average Jones with gusto. "That was the
'little package,' of course."

Next, he turned his attention to the desk. It was bare, except for a
few scraps of paper and some writing implements. But in a crevice there
shone a glimmer of glass. With a careful finger-nail Average Jones
pushed out a small phial. It had evidently been sealed with lead.
Nothing was in it.

Its discoverer leaned back and contemplated it with stiffened eyelids.
For, upon its tiny, improvised label was scrawled the "Mercy sign;"
mysterious before, now all but incredible.

For silent minutes Average Jones sat bemused. Then, turning in a
messenger call, he drew to him a sheet of paper upon which he slowly and
consideringly wrote a few words.

"You get a dollar extra if this reaches the advertising desk of the
Register office within half an hour," he advised the uniformed urchin
who answered the call. The modern mercury seized the paper and fled
forthwith.

Punctuality was a virtue which Average Jones had cultivated to the
point of a fad. Hence it was with some discountenance that his clerk was
obliged to apologize for his lateness, first, at 4 P. M. Of July 23,
to a very dapper and spruce young gentleman in pale mauve spats, who
wouldn't give his name; then at 4:05 P. m. of the same day