Harvey Craig. Second, as a minor issue, the Oriental papers found
in the deserted Bellair Street apartment had been proved, by
translation, to consist mainly of revolutionary sound and fury,
signifying, to the person most concerned, nothing. As for the issue
of the Washington daily, culled from the houseboat, there was,
amidst the usual melange of social, diplomatic, political and city
news, no marked passage to show any reason for its having been in
the possession of "Smith." Average Jones had studied and restudied
the columns, both reading matter and advertising, until he knew them
almost by heart. During the period of waiting for his order to be
brought he was brooding over the problem, when he felt a
hand-pressure on his shoulder and turned to confront Mr. Thomas
Colvin McIntyre, solemn of countenance and groomed with a supernal
modesty of elegance, as befitted a rising young diplomat, already
Fifth Assistant Secretary of State of the United States of America.

"Hello, Tommy," said the breakfaster. "What'll you have to drink?
An entente cordialer?"

"Don't joke," said the other. "I'm in a pale pink funk. I'm afraid
to look into the morning papers."

"Hello! What have you been up to that's scandalous?"

"It isn't me," replied the diplomat ungrammatically. "It's Telfik
Bey."

"Telfik Bey? Wait a minute. Let me think." The name had struck a
response from some thought wire within Average Jones' perturbed
brain. Presently it came to him as visualized print in small