these clerics entertain the quaintest of old-world ideas. And he was
mighty near to knowing, too; for when the train had stopped at Hither
Green and was just about to move off, he suddenly sprang up,
exclaiming, 'God bless my soul!' and snatching my bag from the rack,
darted out on the platform. I immediately grabbed his bag from my rack
and rushed out after him as the train started, hailing him to stop. 'Hi!
My good sir! You've taken my bag.'

"'Not at all,' he replied indignantly. 'You're quite mistaken.' And
then, as I held out his own bag, he looked from one to the other, and,
to my horror, pressed the clasp of my bag and pulled it wide open.

"On what small chances do great events turn! But for the brown paper in
my bag, there would have been a catastrophe. As it was, when his eye
lighted on that rough, globular paper parcel he handed me my bag with an
apologetic smirk and received his own in exchange. But after that, I
kept my property in my hand until I was safe within the precincts of my
laboratory.

"The usual disappointment awaited me when I came to examine the hair and
finger-prints. He was not the man whom I sought. But he made an
acceptable addition to the Series of Criminal Anthropology in my
museum, for I duly collected the bones from the great nettle-bed in the
chalk-pit early in the following September, and set them, properly
bleached and riveted together, in the large wall-case. But this specimen
had a further, though indirect, value. From him I gathered a useful hint
by which I was subsequently guided into a new and fruitful field of
research.

"(See Catalogue, Numbers 6A and 6B.)"