The firm, with Alfred, had a late luncheon at the hotel, and then Pentecost left the others and walked a few blocks—or what would have been a few blocks in a rectangular city—to one of the largest dealers in “rebuilt” typewriting machines. He asked to see some of the less expensive models, and the salesman brought several, placing them on a table along the side of the wall of the showroom. As it was a busy hour, he left Pentecost to try the lot at his leisure, and went to the customers who were waiting to be served. Pentecost sat down and began trying the machines in a manner indicating to anyone who noticed that he was somewhat of a novice. But though he was awkward and slow, it didn’t take him long to discover which of the three instruments displayed the most irregularities in its output; and thereupon he quietly gave it a few extra characteristics, slightly bending a couple of the type bars and filing away a part of two or three of the printing faces with the nail blade of his pocket knife. After a sharp glance about the place to assure himself that he wasn’t under observation, he took the signed sheet of paper and envelope from the large thin book in which Haworth had placed them, handling these things with small pieces of blotting-paper folded once and slipped over the edges, so that for the second time that day he avoided contact with them. The sheet of paper was thus inserted in the machine he had selected (and doctored), and he proceeded to type a letter on it in the space above Haworth’s signature. His inexperience with the typewriting business was still in evidence, for he was constantly stopping to erase or print over, or forgetting to shift for the next line. There’s only time to give you an example, here and there, of this man’s extraordinary methods of constructing his defenses. He worked far deeper than along the line of the obvious, for his highest satisfaction was to put up barriers against what had never been thought of by police departments, but which he conceived as possible. After finishing the letter, addressing the envelope, sealing it and affixing a postage stamp by the same blotting-paper method of handling (the moistening of stamp and envelope being his only “touchdowns”—but no system of tongue-prints has as yet been devised), he bought the machine he had been using for nineteen dollars, and took it with him. The sealed letter he had slipped into a larger envelope, again making use of the blotting-paper hold. Walking to the corner of Court and Sudbury Streets, which wasn’t far, he stopped and, taking out his handkerchief, mopped at his left eye, as if he’d got a cinder in it. At once a man who had been following came and stood at the corner near, but without giving any sign of recognition. It was a busy corner, so that a man more or less stopping there wouldn’t attract attention. Even at that early stage a “trusty” was on the job in case anyone was putting a shadow on him.