k below stairs, he had been overwhelmed and
perhaps wholly consumed by a detached fragment from the fiery visitant.
This picturesque suggestion found many supporters until, on the
afternoon of December fourteenth, a coat and waistcoat were found on
the seashore a mile north of the village. The Reverend Mr. Prentice
identified the clothes as his son's. Searching parties covered the beach
for miles, looking for the body. Preparations were made for the funeral
services, when a new and astonishing factor was injected into the
situation. An advertisement, received by mail from New York, with stamps
affixed to the "copy" to pay for its insertion, appeared in the local
paper.

"And here's the advertisement," concluded Mr. Algernon Spofford,
indicating the slip of paper which he had turned over to Average Jones.
"And if you are going up to Harwick and need help there, why I've got
time to spare."

"Thank you, Algy," replied Average Jones gravely. "But I think you'd
better stay here in case anything turns up at this end. Suppose," he
added with an inspiration, "you trace this Mortimer Morley through the
general delivery."

"All right," agreed Spofford innocently satisfied with this wild-goose
errand. "Lemme know if anything good turns up."

Average Jones took train for Harwick, and within a few hours was rubbing
his hands over an open fire in the parsonage, whose stiff and cheerless
aspect bespoke the lack of a woman's humanizing touch for the Reverend
Mr. Prentice was a widower. Overwrought with anxiety and strain,
the clergyman, as soon as he had taken his coat, began a hurried,
inconsequential narrative, broke off, tried again, fell into an
inextricable confusion of words, and, dropping his head in his hands,
cried:

"I can't tell you. It is all a hopeless jumble."

"Come!" said the younger man encouragingly. "Comfort yourself with the
idea that your son is alive, at any rate."

"But how can I be sure, even of that?"

Average Jones glanced at a copy of the advertisement which he held. "I
think we can take Mr. Morley's word so far."

"Even so; fifty thousand dollars ransom!" said the minister, and stopped
with a groan.

"Nonsense!" said Average Jones heartily. "That advertisement counts for
nothing. Professional kidnappers do not select the sons of impecunious
ministers for their prey. Nor do they give addresses through which they
may be found. You can dismiss the advertisement as a blind; the second
blind, in fa