huddled in a chair. He wore a black skull
cap. So far as identification went he was safe. His whole face was
grotesquely blotched and swollen. So, also, were the hands which rested
on his knees.

"You will pardon me," said Average Jones, "but I am by nature cautious.
You have touched me. Is it contagious?"

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 portions of the alphabet to
his name. Twice a week he walked down-town to the Cosmic Club, where he
was wont to dine and express destructive and anarchistic views upon the
nature, conduct, motives and personality of the organization's governing
committees.

On the day following Bertram's telephone, Professor Gehren entered
Astor Court Temple, took the elevator to the ninth floor, and, following
directions, found himself scanning a ground-glass window flaunting the
capitalized and gilded legend,

A. JONES, AD-VISOR

"Ad-Visor," commented the professor, rancorously. "A vicious verbal
monstrosity!" He