"Of course," said Haigh, slowly swinging round the contents of his glass and blinking thoughtfully at them--"of course there's the cable, which nine days out of ten is in working order. And as this show seems to be run on lines suitable for some place half-way between Egyptian Hall and the Bethlehem Institution, we need be surprised at precious little. But the idea of your _caffe_ friend with the spectacles cabling across for some one here to copy the Recipe for him and send it back by post is a leetle too strong. Of course the chances are several millions to one against his knowing a soul in the island, much less the address of such a person; but even supposing that did occur, and he had an intimate friend here, we'll say, for the sake of argument, at Ferreiras, why should he trust that friend? He must see the friend would understand that the opportunity was one which would not occur again in several score of lifetimes; and he might lay his boots on it that the friend, be he never so confidential and honest, would not fail to profit by the matter for his own ends. Because, you see, this earth is peopled by human beings and not archangels. And besides this trifling objection, doesn't it strike you that the message would never land in the confidential friend's fingers at all?" "I don't quite see that." "It's simple, though. The message is handed in at Genoa. I think there's a through wire from there to Marseille. Thence it goes to Valencia, by which time it has been overhauled by at least three telegraph clerks and all their intimate friends. One cable crosses to Ivica, another continues on to Mallorca, and a third crosses to this island. Knowing the weakness of the Spaniard for making his work as cumbersome as possible, it's a small estimate to say that the message is--or ought to be--fingered by at least six more men before it gets to the delivering office. And do you suppose that out of all those poor devils of telegraph clerks there wouldn't be at least one who would forswear his vows and pocket the information? No, no; 'tisn't good enough. If your man was smart enough to eavesdrop, you can lay to it he wasn't a sufficiently stupendous idiot to shout his secret down a telegraph wire." "There's such a thing as cipher, though." "There is," said Haigh dryly; "but I think we can make bold to leave that out of the calculations. The odds are piled up star-high, as it is, against Mr. Spectacles having a confidential agent here at all whom he would be inclined to trust with such a job. But when you suppose that the pair of them have a ready-arranged cipher in full working order, why, then, infinity is a small figure for the chances against it. Cabling is out of the question, old chappie. In fact, set alongside of that the idea of flying across carries ordinary probability with it."