“Why it might have been some sort of boyish secret code, though it was hardly decipherable enough to judge from. I remember some flamboyant adjectives referring to something three feet high. I threw the paper into the waste-basket.” Turning that receptacle out on the table, Average Jones discovered in the debris a sheet of cheap, ruled paper, covered with penciled words in print characters. Most of these had been crossed out in favor of other words or sentences, which in turn had been “scratched.” Evidently the writer had been toilfully experimenting toward some elegance or emphasis of expression, which persistently eluded him. Amidst the wreck and ruin of rhetoric, however, one phrase stood out clear: “Stupendous scientific sensation.” Below this was a huddle and smudge of words, from which adjectives darted out like dim flame amidst smoke. “Gigantic” showed in its entirety followed by an unintelligible erasure. At the end this line was the legend “3 Feet High.” “Verita Visitor,” appeared below, and beyond it, what seemed to be the word “Void.” And near the foot of the sheet the student of all this chaos could make faintly but unmistakably, “Marvelous Man-l—” the rest of the word being cut off by a broad black smear. “Monster 3 Feet.” The remainder was wholly undecipherable. Average Jones looked up from this curio, and there was a strange expression in the eyes which met the minister’s. “You—er—threw this in the—er—waste-basket.” he drawled. “In which pocket was it?” “The waistcoat. An upper one, I believe. There was a pencil there, too.” “Have you an old pair of shoes of Bailey’s,” asked the visitor abruptly. “Why, I suppose so. In the attic somewhere.” “Please bring them to me.” The Reverend Mr. Prentice left the room. No sooner had the door closed after him than Average Jones jumped out of his chair stripped to his shirt, caught up the pepper-and-salt waistcoat, tried it on and buttoned it across his chest without difficulty; then thrust his arm into the coat which went with it, and wormed his way, effortfully, partly into that. He laid it aside only when he had determined that he could get it no farther on. He was clothed and in his right garments when the Reverend Mr. Prentice returned with a much-worn pair of shoes. “Will these do?” he asked. Average Jones hardly gave them the courtesy of a glance. “Yes,” he said indifferently, and set them aside. “Have you a time-table here?” “You’re going to leave?” cried the clergyman, in sharp disappointment. “In just half an hour,” replied the visitor, holding his finger on the time-table. “But,” cried Mr. Prentice, “that is the train back to New York.” “Exactly.” “And you’re not going to see Tuxall?” “No.” “Nor to examine the place where the clothes were found?” “Haven’t time.” “Mr. Jones, are you giving up the attempt to discover what became of my boy?” “I know what became of him.”