Jane nodded. “I was waiting to see Aunt Helene and make sure before I told you what I suspected. You see, it was a good while ago when a salesman interested her in the stock. She was about to invest when Judge Allen interfered. Rather, he told her that he knew the stock wasn’t worth the paper on which it was engraved. Except that my time has been—well, a bit full since yesterday afternoon, I’d have got the facts at once and given them to you for what they were worth. In predicaments like ours, the rule of _noblesse oblige_ should hold.” “Do _we_ need rules to hold?” Illustratively Pape seized with one hand the slim, ringless fingers still caressing the spray of matrimony vine—his other had a firm grip on Kicko’s collar. His touch, voice and eyes were full of appreciation for her good intentions. It was hard to have such a good—or bad—memory about the absolute justness of one’s desserts; hard to crush those blue bells within her pink palms and not entirely forget—She was so appealing in her languor and dependency that there seemed ample excuse for his asking the right to protect and sustain her. Looking at the matter in this tempting light of the underbrush, he might be expected to owe her an explanation of that kiss in the cab—to tell her that to him it was their betrothal. And yet—— Although Why-Not Pape rarely questioned opportunity, there were some times and some women and some hopes—Rather roughly he dropped her hands; next offered her a memorandum which he had found folded inside the sheaf of stock-certificates—a list of names, with figures set down opposite. “The writing is his beyond doubt—Judge Allen’s,” she declared after a moment’s scrutiny. “Clinches the proof of his guilt in the oil deal. It is a ‘sucker list’—the names of stock biters and the price per bite. It is—” In his pause Pape gave the girl a look that was at once exultant for himself and regretful for her. “It is your family friend’s ticket to the Atlanta pen.” To distract the very natural distress which he saw in her face, he forced cheer to lighten the murmur of their exchange. “But let’s get to the famous cryptogram, lost and at last regained. Now we can read it as a whole.” Allowing the jealous Belgian to wedge himself between them, Pape spread out the wrinkled sheet upon the hairy back; in guarded tones read: List to the Nubian roar And whisper of poplars four. They tell of bed-rock Where rests a crock Brimful of Fortune’s store. ’Tis on a height The vault you’ll sight Of buried might. ’Twill lead you right, Bring delight, Win the fight. Eighteen and twelve will show The spot. Begin below. Above the crock A block will rock, As rocks wrong’s overthrow. List, then, the Nubian roar. List whisper of poplars four. Climb, then, the height. Read signs aright. Count eighteen—twelve. Take heart and delve. Obey. You’ll want no more.