“Very little.”

“Then you do not recognise the machine?  Well, this label was typed with a Blickensderfer—­an excellent machine, but not the form most commonly selected for the rough work of a manufacturer’s office; but we will let that pass.  The important point is this:  the Blickensderfer Company make several forms of machine, the smallest and lightest of which is the literary, specially designed for the use of journalists and men of letters.  Now this label was typed with the literary machine, or, at least, with the literary typewheel; which is really a very remarkable circumstance indeed.”

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“By this asterisk, which has been written by mistake, the inexpert operator having pressed down the figure lever instead of the one for capitals.  The literary typewheel is the only one that has an asterisk, as I noticed when I was thinking of purchasing a machine.  Here, then, we have a very striking fact, for even if a manufacturer chose to 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.”