On the train back to New York, Average Jones Wrote two letters. One
was to the Denny Research Laboratories in St. Louis, the other to
the Department of Agriculture at Washington. On the following
morning be went to Dorr's office. That young chemist was in a
recalcitrant frame of mind.

"I've done about ten dollars' worth of fumigating and a hundred
dollars' worth of damage," he said, "and now, I'd like to have a
Missouri sign. In other words, I want to be shown. What did some
skunk want to kill my dogs for?"

"He didn't."

"But they're dead, aren't they?"

"Accident."

"What kind of an accident?"

"The kind in which the innocent bystander gets the worst of it.
You're the one it was meant for."

"Me?"

"Certainly. You'd probably have got it if the dog hadn't."

The speaker examined the keyhole, then walked over to the radiator
and looked over, under and through it minutely. "Nothing there," he
observed; and, after extending his examination to the windows,
book-shelf and desk, added: