Average Jones greeted his guests cordially. Their first questions
to him were significant of the masculine and feminine differences in
point of view.
"Have you got the necklace?" cried Mrs. Hale.
"Have you got the thief?" queried Kirby.
"I haven't got the necklace and I haven't got the thief," announced
Average Jones; "but I think I've got the man who's got the
necklace."
"Did the thief hand it over to him?" demanded Kirby.
"Are you conversant with the Baconian system of thought, which Old
Chips used to preach to us at Hamilton?" countered Average Jones.
"Forgotten it if I ever knew it," returned Kirby.
"So I infer from your repeated use of the word 'thief.' Bacon's
principle--an admirable principle in detective work--is that we
should learn from things and not from the names of things. You are
deluding yourself with a name. Because the law, which is always
rigid and sometimes stupid, says that a man who takes that which
does not belong to him is a thief, you've got your mind fixed on the
name 'thief,' and the idea of theft.
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