It was risks after all that he was chiefly greedy about.
The whole story was in the notes--with gaps, you understand, which he would have filled up from his memory.

He stuck down his authorities, too, and had an odd trick of giving them all a numerical value and then striking a balance, which stood for the reliability of each stage in the yarn.

The four names he had printed were authorities, and there was a man, Ducrosne, who got five out of a possible five; and another fellow, Ammersfoort, who got three.

The bare bones of the tale were all that was in the book--these, and one queer phrase which occurred half a dozen times inside brackets.

'(Thirty-nine steps)' was the phrase; and at its last time of use it ran--'(Thirty-nine steps, I counted them--high tide 10.17 p.m.)'.