"Well, I'm surprised to hear you say it in a boasting tone," said Miss Petunia gently. "You ought to be ashamed of it." "Yes, ma'am," said Philo Gubb, "but you was conversationally speaking of some deteckative work--" "And I'm leading right up to it all the time," said Miss Scroggs. "Peace of mind is why I have remained single up to now, and peace of mind I have had, but I won't have it much longer if this Anonymous Wiggle keeps on writing me letters." "Somebody named with that cognomen is writing letters to you like a Black Hand would?" asked Mr. Gubb eagerly. "Cognomen or not," said Miss Scroggs, "that's what I call him or her or whoever it is. Snake would be a better name," she added, "but I must say the thing looks more like a fish-worm. Now, here," she said, opening her black hand-bag, "is letter Number One. Read it." Mr. Gubb took the envelope and looked at the address. It was written in a hand evidently disguised by slanting the letters backward, and had been mailed at the Riverbank post-office. "Hum!" said Mr. Gubb. "Lesson Nine of the Rising Sun Deteckative Agency's Correspondence School of Deteckating gives the full rules and regulations for to elucidate the mystery of threatening letters, scurrilous letters, et cetery. Now, is this a threatening letter or a scurrilous letter?" "Well, it may be threatening, and it may not be threatening," said Miss Scroggs. "If it is a threat, I must say I never heard of a threat just like it. And if it is scurrilous, I must say I never heard of anything that scurriled in the words used. Read it." Philo Gubb pulled the letter from the envelope and read it. It ran thus:-- PETUNIA:-- Open any book at page fourteen and read the first complete sentence at the top of the page. Go thou and do likewise. For signature there was nothing but a waved line, drawn with a pen. In some respects it did resemble an angle-worm. Philo Gubb frowned. "The advice of the inditer that wrote this letter seemingly appears to be sort of unexact," he said. "'Most every book is apt to have a different lot of words at the top of page fourteen." "Just so!" said Miss Scroggs. "You may well say that. And say it to myself I did until I started to open a book. I went to the book-case and I took down my Bible and I turned to page fourteen." "As the writer beyond no doubt thought you would," said P. Gubb. "I don't know what he thought," said Miss Scroggs, "but when I opened my Bible and turned to page fourteen there wasn't any page fourteen in it. Page fourteen is part of the 'Brief Foreword from the Translators to the Reader,' so I thought maybe it had got lost and never been missed. So I took up another book. I took up Emerson's Essays, Volume Two." "And what did you read?" asked Philo Gubb.