WE SHALL REQUIRE, OF COURSE, A DEPOSIT OF L600 BEFORE WE CAN PROVISIONALLY ACCEPT THE ORDER. I MAY ADD THAT A GUARANTEE GOES WITH EACH CAR--PROVISIONAL, NATURALLY-- AND WE WILL PROVISIONALLY UNDERTAKE TO INFORM YOU OF ANY PROVISIONAL ALTERATIONS-- THAT WE MAY MAKE IN OUR PROVISIONAL DESIGNS IF YOU APPLY TO OUR PROVISIONAL WORKS-- --PROVIDED----NO, SIR, I CANNOT TELL YOU WHERE YOU CAN HIRE A PUSH-BIKE!!!"] * * * * * AT THE PLAY. "THE MYSTERY OF THE YELLOW ROOM." Gentlemen of the Press having been tactfully requested not to give away this awesome mystery, I am barred by the fastidious sense of honour which distinguishes our profession from spoiling your pleasure in this matter--a course which otherwise I should naturally have preferred. Not that I have any too clear idea of what it was all about or why an innocent gentleman should be apparently going to be guillotined for it. For there was no question of anyone having been murdered, the only tangible crime before the Court that I could see being the abstraction of some scientific papers. However don't imagine that this vagueness will deprive you of the pleasures of shock. Only don't go thinking about it. Remember _Rosamund_ and her Purple Jar. I think I am free to tell you that a young journalist possessing (characteristically) "fantastic humour and exuberant gaiety," a famous amateur detective to boot, outwits all the official police, robs the law of its prey and finds a long-lost mother for himself. If this doesn't excite you sufficiently you can extract fun from subsidiary details. It is always diverting to the unspoilt soul when the principal lady goes to turn up one lamp and the other promptly glows instead; or when, a particularly obvious and commonplace knock assaulting the ear, she exclaims in tragic accents, "There's someone at the door;" or when the detective drags from the bottom of the lake a pair of the driest of dry old boots. Or, if you are superior to this kind of thing, you can amuse yourself by deducing from the practice before you the famous _Rules for Revolvers_, which, _mutatis mutandis_, are as old as the Aristotelian unities and, for all I (or, probably, you) know to the contrary, were laid down at the same time by the same hand. _Rule 1._ "All Innocent Characters expecting murderous assault from Particularly Desperate Villains will provide themselves with revolvers. Before retiring for the tragic night they will, grasping the revolver firmly in the right hand, place it carefully (as Professor LEACOCK would direct) on the revolver-stand. The P.D.V. will then know what to do about it. (_Note_: P.D.V.'s do not carry revolvers. They don't need to.)