"All right, who is he?"
"Dick Temple—the mining engineer and superintendent."
"Telegraph him at once. Ask him to come down on the evening train. Tell him to say nothing about knowing you or me, but to come to your rooms this evening. I'll see him there."
Duncan took up a pad of telegraph blanks and a pencil. He had scarcely begun to write when Hallam stopped him.
"Never do that," he exclaimed. "Never write a message on a pad, especially with a pencil."
"But why not?"
"See!" answered Hallam, tearing off the blank on which Duncan had begun to write, and directing attention to the blank that lay beneath. "The impression made by the pencil on the under sheet is as legible as the writing above. It would be awkward if Tandy should pick up that pad and find out what you had telegraphed. Always tear the top blank off the pad and lay it on the desk before you write on it."
"Thank you! That's another of your wise precepts. I wonder I didn't think of it before."
"Oh, hardly anybody ever does think of such things, but they make trouble."
That night Hallam, Duncan, and Temple met in Duncan's rooms. Hallam promptly took possession by requesting Duncan to "go away somewhere, while I explain matters to Temple."