"Haf you any objegtions to telling me what you haf been gonsidering?"
"Not at all, sir," Colin answered. "I'd be glad to show you, if you'd care to see. I've been trying to find out the cause of the difference in the secretions of the mussels that have very bright pearly shells and those that are dull. But I haven't got very far along yet."
"Fery good subject," was the reply; "let me see your notebooks."
Colin brought him a number of small notebooks filled with records of experiments that he had been doing in the evenings, and over some of them the gem expert smiled.
"You haf done a great deal of unnecessary work," he said, "work that I gould haf told you had no bearing on the results, but it isn't time wasted at all, for you will haf learned more that way than if I had told you. And you haf two series of eggsperiments that are very useful. If you only had time to make the series gomplete, the information would be of value to the Bureau."
"Would you include them in your report, sir, if I completed the series?"
His chief leaned back in his chair.
"Seriously," he said, "I think your eggsperi
ments on the garacter of the secretions are very interesting. You don't know as much organic gemistry as you should, but if you will take a few suggestions from me, I think your work would be worth publigation."
"You mean in your article?" asked Colin.