Carter at length agreed this might be so, and after a while he went up to his room. Ranville and myself talked a few moments, and then he went over to the desk to write a letter. In my chair I dreamed away the moments. The afternoon wore away, and in the silence of the library I half dozed—dozed, to be awakened by a muttered oath from Ranville. As I gave a start, it was to see him looking at a piece of paper in his hand. As his eyes met mine, he said, with a rather sheepish expression on his face: “What a confounded ass I have been!” “What's the matter?” I drawled as I noticed his eyes on the paper he held. “Why, I forgot all about that bit of paper with the letters; you know—those ‘Anani’ and that sort of thing.” I had found the paper by Warren's body. The letters had puzzled us at the time, but we had paid very little attention to them. Just what they meant, I had not known nor any one else. But Ranville had placed the paper in his pocket, and then apparently forgotten all about it. Now, in reaching into his pocket, he had found it; and the fact he had forgotten all about it had put him in a decidedly bad humor. I half laughed as I reminded him that we did not suppress evidence in that manner in the States. He gave me a rueful smile and again wondered what the letters might mean. But I shook my head, saying I had not the slightest idea. While we were arguing about it, Bartley came into the room and asked what we were talking about. Extending the paper to him, Ranville told how I had found it beside the body. He seemed chagrined as he remarked that he had placed it in his pocket and forgotten all about it. He added that I had said it meant nothing anyway. With a look in my direction, Bartley took the piece of paper, glanced at it, spelled out the words, and suddenly chuckled. Then he slowly spelt out the letters—“Anani—” “So it means nothing, Pelt?” he asked. I assured him that it meant nothing in my life. Rising, I said that no word I knew anything about was spelled like that. Again he looked at the paper, then laughed, but the laughter lasted but a second, and his face grew serious. He started to speak, checked himself, and placed the paper in his bill case. Though we asked him what he thought the letters meant, the only reply we received was that he would tell us later. It was almost six, and at Bartley's suggestion we went to our rooms to be ready for dinner. Patton was to eat with us, and I was eager to hear what he had done during the day. Perhaps deep in my mind was the wish he would inform us what the wonderful discovery was that Warren had made in China.