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Code knitted his brows and thought back carefully. He had an

instinctive feeling that perhaps in this mirror lay the key to

the whole situation, just as often in life the most unexpected

and trivial things or events are pregnant with great moment.

"I had it," he said slowly, thinking hard; "let me see: the last

time I remember it was the day after my first race with Nat. In

the desk that stood in the cabin of the old May I kept the log,

my sextant, and a lot of other things of that kind. In a lower

drawer was this mirror, and the reason I saw it was this:

"When I had made fast to my moorings in the harbor I immediately

went below to make the entry in the log about the race--naturally

I couldn't leave that undone. I remember I looked in the top

drawer for the book, but didn't find it. So then I looked in the

other drawers and, in doing so, opened the one containing the

mirror.