ology and the association of ideas."

The red-faced shopman regarded him with an eye of menace; but he
continued gaily, swinging his cane, "Why," he pursued, "why are two
tickets wrongly placed in a greengrocer's shop like a shovel hat that
has come to London for a holiday? Or, in case I do not make myself
clear, what is the mystical association which connects the idea of nuts
marked as oranges with the idea of two clergymen, one tall and the other
short?"

The eyes of the tradesman stood out of his head like a snail's; he
really seemed for an instant likely to fling himself upon the stranger.
At last he stammered angrily: "I don't know what you 'ave to do with it,
but if you're one of their friends, you can tell 'em from me that I'll
knock their silly 'eads off, parsons or no parsons, if they upset my
apples again."

"Indeed?" asked the detective, with great sympathy. "Did they upset your
apples?"

"One of 'em did," said the heated shopman; "rolled 'em all over the
street. I'd 'ave caught the fool but for havin' to pick 'em up."

"Which way did these parsons go?" asked Valentin.

"Up that second road on the left-hand side, and then across the square,"
said the other promptly.

"Thanks," replied Valentin, and vanished like a fairy. On the other side
of the second square he found a policeman, and said: "This is urgent,
constable; have you seen two clergymen in shovel hats?"

The policeman began to chuckle heavily. "I 'ave, sir; and if you arst
me, one of 'em was drunk. He stood in the middle of the road that
bewildered that--"

"Which way did they go?" snapped Valentin.

"They took one of them yellow buses over there," answered the man; "them
that go to Hampstead."

Valentin produced his official card and said very rapidly: "Call up two
of your men to come with me in pursuit," and crossed the road with such
contagious energy that the ponderous policeman was moved to almost agile
obedience. In a minute and a half the French detective was joined on the
opposite pavement by an inspector and a man in plain clothes.

"Well, sir," began the former, with smiling importance, "and what
may--?"

Valentin pointed suddenly with his cane. "I'll tell you on the top of
that omnibus," he said, and was darting and dodging across the tangle of
the traffic. When all three sank panting on the top seats of the yellow
vehicle, the inspector said: "We could go four times as quick in a
taxi."

"Quite true," replied their lead