Chapter VIII. Big Print - Page 2

next?"

"Ay? How do I know? What're you devilin' me this way for?"

"You wouldn't call a policeman?"

"No," said Spofford, staring.

"You wouldn't hustle around and 'phone Central?"

"Bosh!"

"Yet if any one told you you hadn't the sense a policeman, you'd resent it."

"Of course, I would!"

"Well, Jimmy McCue, the night special, who patrols past the corner, saw that very thing happen a few nights ago at the Sterriter Building. Knowing that rats don't go out at midnight for a saunter, two dozen strong, he began to suspect."

"Suspect what?" growled Spofford.

"That there must be some abnormal cause for so abnormal a proceeding. Think, now, Algy."

"I've heard of rats leavin' a sinkin' ship. The building might have been sinkin'," suggested the visitor hopefully.

"Is that the best you can do? I'll give you one more try."

"I know," said Spofford. "A cat."

"On my soul," declared Average Jones, gazing at his club-mate with increased interest, "you're the most remarkable specimen of inverted mentality I've ever encountered. D'you think a cat habitually rounds up two dozen rats and then chivies 'em out into the street for sport? McCue didn't have any cat theory. He figured that when rats come out of a place that way the place is afire. So he turned in an alarm and saved a two hundred and fifty thousand dollar building."

"Umph!" grunted Spofford. "Well, what's that got to do with the advertisement I brought you?"

"Nothing in the world, directly. I'm merely trying to figure out, in my own way, how a mind like yours could see under the surface print into the really interesting peculiarity of this clipping. Now I know that your mind didn't do anything of the sort. Come on, now, Algy, who sent this to you?"

"Cousin of mine up in Harwick. I wish you weren't so Billy-be-dashed sharp, Average. I used to visit in Harwick, so they asked me to get you interested in Bailey Prentice's case. He's the lost boy."

"You've done it. Now tell me all you know."

Spofford produced a letter which gave the outlines of the case. Bailey Prentice's disappearance it was set forth, was the lesser of two simultaneous phenomena which violently jarred the somnolent New England village of Harwick from its wonted calm. The greater was the "Harwick meteor." At ten-fifteen on the night of December twelfth, the streets being full of people coming from the moving picture show, there was a startling concussion from the overhanging clouds and the astounded populace saw a ball of flame plunging earthward, to the northwest of the town, and waxing in intensity as it fell. Darkness