t's
such a trivial matter, indeed, such an absurdity, that I feel ashamed
to trouble you with it."

"Never mind; let's have it, absurd or not."

With many hesitations, and with much inward resentment of the folly of
the thing, Salisbury told his tale, and repeated reluctantly the absurd
intelligence and the absurder doggerel of the scrap of paper, expecting
to hear Dyson burst out into a roar of laughter.

"Isn't it too bad that I should let myself be bothered by such stuff as
that?" he asked, when he had stuttered out the jingle of once and twice
and thrice.

Dyson had listened to it all gravely, even to the end, and meditated
for a few minutes in silence.

"Yes," he said at length, "it was a curious chance, your taking shelter
in that archway just as those two went by. But I don't know that I
should call what was written on the paper nonsense; it is bizarre
certainly, but I expect it has a meaning for somebody. Just repeat it
again, will you? and I will write it down. Perhaps we might find a
cipher of some sort, though I hardly think we shall."

Again had the reluctant lips of Salisbury to slowly stammer out the
rubbish he abhorred, while Dyson jotted it down on a slip of paper.

"Look over it, will you?" he said, when it was done; "it may be
important that I should have every word in its place. Is that all
right?"

"Yes, that is an accurate copy. But I don't think you will get much out
of it. Depend upon it, it is mere nonsense, a wanton scribble. I must
be going now, Dyson. No, no more; that stuff of yours is pretty strong.
Good-night."

"I suppose you would like to hear from me, if I did find out anything?"

"No, not I; I don't want to hear about the thing again. You may regard
the discovery, if it is one as your own."

"Very well. Good-night."

IV

A good many hours after Salisbury had returned to the company of the
green rep chairs, Dyson still sat at his desk, itself a Japanese
romance, smoking many pipes, and meditating over his friend's story.
The bizarre quality of the inscription which had annoyed Salisbury was
to him an attraction; and now and again he took it up and scanned
thoughtfully what he had written, especially the quaint jingle at the
end. It was a token, a symbol, he decided, and not a cipher; and the
woman who had flung it away was, in all probability, entirely ignorant
of its meaning. She was but the agent of the "Sam" she had abused and
discarded, and he, too, was again the