your bills-of-fare?" she said to Annie Boyle.

"Why do you wonder that?" demanded Annie.

"I like the type, and I want to get some cards printed from it."

"We print our own bills," said the child. "There's a press an' type an'
the fixings in a room in the basement, an' Tom Linnet used to print a
new card every day for all the three meals. He did it at night, you
know, between two an' six o'clock, when nobody's ever around the hotel.
They was swell bills-of-fare, but Tom claimed he couldn't do so much
printin', although that's part o' the night clerk's duty, an' Pa
thought it used up too much good cardboard at war-time prices. So now
we jus' get out a new bill once a week, an' write the extry dishes on
it."

"That does very well," said Josie. "Does Tom still do the printing?"

"Yes. Pa hired him as night clerk 'cause he'd worked in a printin'
office an' could do printin'. But since Tom got rich he don't like to
work, an the bills ain't printed as good as they used to be."

"This looks pretty good to me," said Josie, eyeing it approvingly.

"I guess, if Tom wasn't goin' to leave, Pa would fire him," asserted
Annie, rising from the table. "Good mornin', miss; I'll see you again,
if you're stoppin' here."

After she had gone, Josie finished her breakfast thoughtfully. Three
distinct facts she had gleaned from Annie Boyle's careless remarks.
First, Tom Linnet had acquired sudden riches. Second, the type used on
the hotel menu cards was identically the same that the disloyal
circulars had been printed from. Third, between the hours of two and
five in the mornings, the night clerk's duties permitted him to be
absent from the hotel office.

Josie decided that Annie Boyle had not been admitted to the inner
confidences of the conspirators, and that Tom Linnet was their tool and
had been richly paid for whatever services he had performed. She was
now gathering "clues" so fast that it made her head swim. "That chance
meeting with Kauffman, at Kasker's," she told herself, "led me directly
into the nest of traitors. I'm in luck. Not that I'm especially clever,
but because they're so astonishingly reckless. That's usually the way
with criminals; they close every loop-hole but the easiest one to peep
through--and then imagine they're safe from discovery!"

CHAPTER XIX
THE PRINTING OFFICE

After breakfast Josie sallied out upon the street and found a hardware
store. There, after some exploration, she purchased an asbesto