The article was palpitatingly interesting.

Had Polly been commenting audibly upon it?
Certain it is that the man over there had spoken in direct answer to her thoughts.
She looked at him and frowned; the next moment she smiled.

Miss Burton (of the _Evening Observer)_ had a keen sense of humour, which two years' association with the British Press had not succeeded in destroying, and the appearance of the man was sufficient to tickle the most ultra-morose fancy.

Polly thought to herself that she had never seen any one so pale, so thin, with such funny light-coloured hair, brushed very smoothly across the top of a very obviously bald crown.

He looked so timid and nervous as he fidgeted incessantly with a piece of string; his long, lean, and trembling fingers tying and untying it into knots of wonderful and complicated proportions.
Having carefully studied every detail of the quaint personality Polly felt more amiable.
"And yet," she remarked kindly but authoritatively, "this article, in an otherwise well-informed journal, will tell you that, even within the last year, no fewer than six crimes have completely baffled the police, and the perpetrators of them are still at large." "Pardon me," he said gently, "I never for a moment ventured to suggest that there were no mysteries to the _police_; I merely remarked that there were none where intelligence was brought to bear upon the investigation of crime." "Not even in the Fenchurch Street _mystery_.