y troubled. He recalled now
that Miss Scroggs had smiled in a winning way when she spoke to him,
and that she had quite warmly pressed his hand when she departed. With
a timid bachelor's extreme fear of designing women, Mr. Gubb dreaded
another meeting with Miss Scroggs. Only his faithfulness to his
Correspondence School diploma had power to keep him at work on the
Anonymous Wiggle case, and he walked thoughtfully toward the home of
Mrs. Canterby. He went to the back door and knocked gently. Mrs.
Canterby came to the door.

"Good-afternoon," said Mr. Gubb. "I been a little nervous about that
paper I hung onto your walls. If I could take a look at it--"

"Well, now, Mr. Gubb, that's real kind of you," said Mrs. Canterby.
"You can look and welcome. If you just wait until I excuse myself to
Miss Scroggs--"

"Is she here?" asked Mr. Gubb with a hasty glance toward his avenues
of escape.

"She just run in to borrow a book to read," said Mrs. Canterby, "and
she's having some trouble finding one to suit her taste. She's in my
lib'ry sort of glancing through some books."

"Does--does she glance through to about near to page fourteen?" asked
Mr. Gubb nervously.

"Now that you call it to mind," said Mrs. Canterby, "that's about how
far she is glancing through them. She's glanced through about sixteen,
and she's still glancing. She thinks maybe she'll take 'Myra's Lover,
or The Hidden Secret,' but she ain't sure. She come over to borrow
'Weldon Shirmer,' but I had lent that to a friend. She was real
disappointed I didn't have it."

Mr. Gubb wiped the perspiration from his face. He too would have liked
at that moment to have seen a copy of "Weldon Shirmer," and to have
read what stood at the top of page fourteen.

"If it ain't too much trouble, Mrs. Canterby," he said, "I wish you
would sort of fetch that Myra book out here without Miss Scroggs's
knowing you done so. I got a special reason for it, in my deteckative
capacity. And I wish you wouldn't mention to Miss Scroggs about my
being here."

"Land sakes!" said Mrs. Canterby. "What's up now? Miss Scroggs she's
right interested in you, too. She made inquiries of me about you when
you was working here. She says she thinks you are a real handsome
gentleman."

Mrs. Canterby laughed coyly and went out, and Mr. Gubb dropped into a
chair and wiped his face again nervously. His eye, falling on the
kitchen table, noted a sheet of writing-paper. It was the same style
of pape