A contortion of the features, probably indicating a smile, made the
changeling face more hideous than before.

"Be at peace," he said. "It is not. You can find your way out? I
bid you good evening, sir."

"Now I wonder," mused Average Jones, as he jolted on the rear
platform of an Eighth Avenue car, "by what lead I could have landed
that job. I rather think I've missed something."

All that night, and recurrently on many nights thereafter, the
poisoned and contorted face and the scrawled "MERCY" on the cabinet
lurked troublously in his mind. Nor did Bertram cease to scoff him
for his maladroitness until both of them temporarily forgot the
strange "Smith" and his advertisement in the entrancement of a chase
which led them for a time far back through the centuries to a climax
that might well have cost Average Jones his life. They had returned
from Baltimore and the society of the Man who spoke Latin a few days
when Bertram, at the club, called up Average Jones' office.

"I'm sending Professor Paul Gehren to you," was his message. "He'll
call to-day or to-morrow."

Average Jones knew Professor Gehren by sight, knew of him further by
repute as an impulsive, violent, warm-hearted and learned pundit
who, for a typically meager recompense, furnished sundry classes of
young gentlemen with amusement, alarm and instruction, in about
equal parts, through the medium of lectures at the Metropolitan
University. During vacations the professor pursued, with some
degree of passion, experiments which added luster and selected