ell, I'll be Billy-be-dashed," exploded Mr. Spofford. "How did you
work it out, Average?"

"On the previously enunciated principle," returned Average Jones with
a smile, "that when rats leave a sinking ship or a burning building
there's usually something behind, worth investigating."

CHAPTER IX. THE MAN WHO SPOKE LATIN

Mementoes of Average Jones' exploits in his chosen field hang on the
walls of his quiet sanctum. Here the favored visitor may see the two
red-ink dots on a dated sheet of paper, framed in with the card of a
chemist and an advertised sale of lepidopteroe, which drove a famous
millionaire out of the country. Near by are displayed the exploitation
of a lure for black-bass, strangely perforated (a man's reason hung on
those pin-pricks), and a scrawled legend which seems to spell "Mercy"
(two men's lives were sacrificed to that); while below them, set in
somber black, is the funeral notice of a dog worth a million dollars;
facing the call for a trombone-player which made a mayor, and the
mathematical formula which saved a governor. But nowhere does the
observer find any record of one of the Ad-Visor's most curious cases,
running back two thousand years; for its owner keeps it in his desk
drawer, whence the present chronicler exhumed it, by accident, one day.
Average Jones has always insisted that he scored a failure on this,
because, through no possible fault of his own, he was unable to restore
a document of the highest historical and literary importance. Of that,
let the impartial reader judge.

It was while Average Jones was waiting for a break of that deadlock of
events which, starting from the flat-dweller with the poisoned face,
finally worked out the strange fate of Telfik Bey, that he sat, one
morning, breakfasting late. The cool and breezy inner portico of the
Cosmic Club, where small tables overlook a gracious fountain shimmering
with the dart and poise of goldfish, was deserted save for himself,
a summer-engagement star actor, a specialist in carbo-hydrates, and a
famous adjuster of labor troubles; the four men being fairly typical of
the club's catholicity of membership. Contrary to his impeccant habit,
Average Jones bore the somewhat frazzled aspect of a man who has been up
all night. Further indication of this inhered in the wide yawn, of
which he was in mid-enjoyment, when a hand on his shoulder cut short his
ecstasy.

"Sorry to interrupt so valuable an exercise," said a languid v