The Encyclopedia Brown Encyclopedia

Gary Hale had a passion for entering contests. The contest that he was most interested the morning he went to the Brown Detective Agency was the Fighting Words of Famous Americans contest. Apparently, send a list of famous battle cries in American history, and the person who sent in the most would get a red, white and blue motorcycle.

What kind of contest was this? Did someone just have a patriotic motorcycle kicking around that they needed to get rid of in the most stupid way possible?

Whatever, not important.

Gary was on his way to the post office to mail off his entry when Bugs Meany intercepted him. Bugs asked him what was up, and Gary, for some reason, answered him. That’s when Bugs snatched the envelope out of one of Gary’s breast pockets and ran off with it. Gary was concerned that Bugs was going to enter the contest with the stolen sayings and win the motorcycle for himself.

Encyclopedia and Gary went to see Bugs at the Tigers’ Clubhouse. When Gary accused Bugs of stealing his envelope, Bugs said that Gary had it all wrong and that Gary had actually stolen Bugs’ envelope of sayings.

That doesn’t really make sense, Bugs. At all.

Bugs explained that Gary swiped it right out of his shirt pocket. At that point, Encyclopedia pointed out that the shirt Bugs was wearing didn’t have any pockets. Bugs looked down and saw that he was caught, but he saved himself by explaining that Tigers change their shirts throughout the day to stay clean, and that he had been wearing a polo shirt with a pocket when Gary stole the envelope from him. With his finger, he traced where the right breast pocket would be.

To prove that Bugs knew the sayings, he shouted a few at Gary. But that didn’t prove anything. For all we know, he just read them from the envelope he had just stolen from Gary.

Encyclopedia figured it out. Bugs made the mistake of implying that Gary took the envelope out of his right breast pocket. However, he said that his shirt had “a pocket,” and men’s shirts with only one pocket, it would be on the left side, not the right side.