use a
'Blick' in his factory, it is inconceivable that he should select the
literary form in preference to the more suitable 'commercial' machine."

"Yes," I agreed; "it is certainly very singular."

"And now," pursued Thorndyke, "to consider the writing itself. It has
been done by an absolute beginner. He has failed to space in two places,
he has written five wrong letters, and he has written figures instead of
capitals in two instances."

"Yes; he has made a shocking muddle of it. I wonder he didn't throw the
label away and type another."

"Precisely," said Thorndyke. "And if we wish to find out why he did not,
we have only to look at the back of the label. You see that the name of
the firm, instead of being printed on the label itself in the usual
manner, is printed on a separate slip of paper which is pasted on the
label--a most foolish and clumsy arrangement, involving an immense waste
of time. But if we look closely at the printed slip itself we perceive
something still more remarkable; for that slip has been cut down to fit
the label, and has been cut with a pair of scissors. The edges are not
quite straight, and in one place the 'overlap,' which is so
characteristic of the cut made with scissors, can be seen quite
plainly."

He handed the packet to me with a reading-lens, through which I could
distinctly make out the points he had mentioned.

"Now I need not point out to you," he continued, "that these slips
would, ordinarily, have been trimmed by the printer to the correct size
in his machine, which would leave an absolutely true edge; nor need I
say that no sane business man would adopt such a device as this. The
slip of paper has been cut with scissors to fit the label, and it has
then been pasted on to the surface that it has been made to fit, when
all this waste of time and trouble--which, in practice, means
money--could have been saved by printing the name on the label itself."

"Yes, that is so; but I still do not see why the fellow should not have
thrown away this label and typed another."

"Look at the slip again," said Thorndyke. "It is faintly but evenly
discoloured and, to me, has the appearance of having been soaked in
water. Let us, for the moment, assume that it has been. That would look
as if it had been removed from some other package, which again would
suggest that the person using it had only the one slip, which he had
soaked off the original package, dried, cut down and pasted on th