them who indulge in white cravats, wear their coat collars turned down?
Consult your own experience, now, and tell me whether you ever saw
anybody but a very rich man (with the exceptions already stated) wearing
a white cravat. I leave it to your candor."

Wilkeson and Maltboy nodded their heads, as if stricken dumb with
conviction.

Overtop, gratified with this ready acquiescence, modestly went on to say
that he would not undertake to explain the phenomenon; that task he left
to some more philosophical mind. He contented himself with making a
humble record of facts.

"And now that each of you have made a discovery in the row of houses,
let me try my luck." Overtop rubbed the window, looked out, and
carefully surveyed the row from end to end, and back again. "Ah, I have
it!" he said. "A real mystery, too. Look at that four-story house near
the western end of the block, the one a trifle shabbier than its
neighbors. Do you see, in the open window, a man with a pale,
intellectual face, gray hair, and arms bare to the elbows, filing away
at something held in a vise before him? Now he stops to examine a
paper--a plan, probably--which he holds in his hand. Now he wipes the
perspiration from his forehead. Can't you see him?"

"Distinctly," was the joint reply.

"What do you suppose he is doing?" asked Overtop.

"No idea," said Wilkeson. "Perhaps mending a teakettle."