“Look here,” said he, with a glance at his watch.  “I’ll take a few minutes.  Kindly sit down there and I’ll show you how the man is behaving.”

Sharlee sat down as she was bidden, close by his side, piqued as to her curiosity, as well as flattered by his royal condescension.  She wore her business suit, which was rough and blue, with a smart little pony coat.  She also wore a white veil festooned around her hat, and white gloves that were quite unspotted from the world.  The raw February winds had whipped roses into her cheeks; her pure ultramarine eyes made the blue of her suit look commonplace and dull.  Dusk had fallen over the city, and Queed cleverly bethought him to snap on an electric light.  It revealed a very shabby, ramshackle, and dingy office; but the long table in it was new, oaken, and handsome.  In fact, it was one of the repairs introduced by the new management.

“Here,” said he, “is his first letter—­the one that brought me from New York.”

He took it from its envelope and laid it open on the table.  A sense of the pathos in this ready sharing of one’s most intimate secrets with a stranger took hold of Sharlee as she leaned forward to see what it might say.

“Be careful!  Your feather thing is sticking my eye.”

Meekly the girl withdrew to a safer distance.  From there she read with amazement the six typewritten lines which was all that the letter proved to be.  They read thus: 

Your father asks that, if you have any of the natural feelings of a son, you will at once leave New York and take up your residence in this city.  This is the first request he has ever made of you, as it will be, if you refuse it, the last.  But he earnestly begs that you will comply with it, anticipating that it will be to your decided advantage to do so.

“The envelope that that came in,” said Queed, briskly laying it down.  “Now here’s the envelope that the twenty dollars came in—­it is exactly like the other two, you observe.—­The last exhibit is somewhat remarkable; it came yesterday.  Read that.”

Sharlee required no urging.  She read: 

     Make friends; mingle with people, and learn to like them.  This is
     the earnest injunction of

     Your father.

“Note especially,” said the young man, “the initial Q on each of the three envelopes.  You will observe that the tail in every instance is defective in just the same way.”

Sure enough, the tail of every Q was broken off short near the root, like the rudimentary tail anatomists find in Genus Homo.  Mr. Queed looked at her with scholarly triumph.

“I suppose that removes all doubt,” said she, “that all these came from the same person.”

“Unquestionably.—­Well?  What do they suggest to you?”

A circle of light from the green-shaded desk-lamp beat down on the three singular exhibits.  Sharlee studied them with bewilderment mixed with profound melancholy.