appeared to be all eyes and hair. The man with the black beard,
to gain some private end, had tied this young woman with ropes to
a complicated system of machinery, mostly wheels and pulleys. The
man with the yellow beard was in the act of pushing or pulling a
lever. The beardless man, protruding through a trapdoor in the
floor, was pointing a large revolver at the parties of the second
part.

Beneath this picture were the words: "Hands up, you scoundrels!"

Above it, in a meandering scroll across the page, was: "Gridley
Quayle, Investigator. The Adventure of the Secret Six. By Felix
Clovelly."

The Honorable Freddie did not so much read as gulp the adventure
of the Secret Six. His face was crimson with excitement; his hair
was rumpled; his eyes bulged. He was absorbed.

This is peculiarly an age in which each of us may, if we do but
search diligently, find the literature suited to his mental
powers. Grave and earnest men, at Eton and elsewhere, had tried
Freddie Threepwood with Greek, with Latin and with English; and
the sheeplike stolidity with which he declined to be interested
in the masterpieces of all three tongues had left them with the
conviction that he would never read anything.

And then, years afterward, he had suddenly blossomed out as a
student--only, it is true, a student of the Adventures of Gridley
Quayle; but still a student. His was a dull life and Gridley
Quayle was the only person who brought romance into it. Existence