tables.

Fate had taken charge of that yellow envelope from the moment it was
mailed in Mexico; Chance now laid it on a yellow oak table before a
yellow-haired girl; Destiny squinted over her shoulder as she drew
the letter from its triply violated envelope and spread it out on
the table before her.

A rich, warm flush mounted to her cheeks as she examined the
document. Her chance to distinguish herself had arrived at last. She
divined it instantly. She did not doubt it. She was a remarkable
girl.

The room remained very still. The five other cipher experts of the
P. I. Service were huddled over their tables, pencil in hand,
absorbed in their several ungodly complications and laborious
calculations. But they possessed no Rosetta Stone to aid them in
deciphering hieroglyphics; toad-like, they carried the precious
stone in their heads, M. D.!

No indiscreet sound interrupted their mental gymnastics, save only
the stealthy scrape of a pen, the subdued rustle of writing paper,
the flutter of a code-book's leaves thumbed furtively.

The yellow-haired girl presently rose from her chair, carrying in
her hand the yellow letter and its yellow envelope with yellow slips
attached; and this harmonious combination of colour passed
noiselessly into a smaller adjoining office, where a solemn young
man sat biting an unlighted cigar and gazing with preternatural
sagacity at nothing at all.