There are twelve pockets in the suit I am wearing. Fearfully I go through the twelve pockets and many are the lost treasures and forgotten-to-mail letters I find, but no Address Book! Wait! there is still another pocket! One I never use—THE THIRTEENTH POCKET!
With the deliberation of despair I empty the Thirteenth Pocket of its contents—a broken cigarette, two amalgamated postage stamps, a device for cleaning pipe bowls, some box-checks for The Famous Mrs. Fair, four rubber bands, a fragment of an Erie time-table and—the Address Book!
On the last page of the Address Book is the Combination, written in a pale Greek cipher, but still legible, grasping the porcelain door-knob firmly between my thumb and four fingers I scan the cipher eagerly. De-coded, it reads as follows—Twist knob to the right as far as possible and push door.
. . . .
With heart beating like a typewriter I obeyed the directions to the letter, and to my intense relief the door yielded and in another moment I was in the room!
And there, scattered over the surface of my desk like surprised conspirators, feigning ignorance of one another’s presence, were twelve yellow Match-boxes!
How they mastered the combination of the door and got into the room, I shall not attempt to explain. I am only an amateur Detective.
All I know is that Match-boxes, though they be scattered to the ends of the house (or World), always get together in some one place.
Perhaps it is for safety, they get together.
I have always wondered why they are called Safety Matches.