One of the most sustaining gifts a man can possess is the ability to
look upon the bright side of disaster. It was a gift which, until
now, Sigsbee H. Waddington had lacked almost entirely: but at this
moment, owing perhaps to the fact that he had just introduced into his
interior a healing drink of quite exceptional strength, he suddenly
found himself discerning with a limpid clearness the fact that the
elimination of that near-pearl necklace from the scheme of things was,
from his point of view, the very best thing that could have happened.
It had not been his intention to allow his young assistant to secure
the necklace and convert it to her own uses: but, now that this had
happened, what, he asked himself, had he to worry about? The main thing
was that the necklace had disappeared. Coming right down to it, that
was the consummation at which he had aimed all along.
What it amounted to was that, when all the tumult and the shouting
had died, he was three hundred dollars in hand and consequently in a
position, if he ever met that policeman again and the policeman had not
happened to hear the news which United Beef had told him, to....
At this point in his meditations Mr. Waddington suddenly broke off and
uttered a sharp exclamation. For before his eyes in letters of fire
there seemed to be written the one word