Instructions: Guess the words defined by the cryptic clues (answers vary in length from four to eleven letters, and six are capitalized) then enter them in the grid one after another in the same order as their clues, starting in the upper left corner. Across words that don't end at the right continue on the next row, and down words that don't end at the bottom continue in the next column. Eleven across words and ten down words won't fit in the grid unless one of their letters is omitted. Those twenty-one letters, taken in order as they occur in across and down words, spell a seven-word message related to the mystery entry. Thanks to Kevin Wald for test-solving and editing this puzzle. (If you are having trouble printing these puzzles, you can download an Adobe Acrobat version of the puzzle and grid). [Want to see some hints?]

1. Friend goes around leading bird
2. Ma's pal is mad for a particular kind of chalcedony
3. Block my site illegally
4. Lulu's typically keeping vigorous
5. Chuck sent in for game
6. Squire beckoning with instrument
7. Place to have a seat: at end of aisle
8. In drunken trance, get floral secretion
9. Decompose gold in revolver
10. Frog genus of royal collection
11. Japanese musical drama reflecting or depicting integrity
12. Mystery entry
13. Breaking heart of radiant huntress
14. A brief account in pure Sumerian
15. Imprisoned, wasted, beheaded
16. Den of honesty
17. Cerdan falling for Ulanova, maybe
18. Examine closely, starting very early tomorrow
19. Shirt and black band of woolen fabric
20. Worries about one in decay
21. Staff has a way
22. Earl allowed to pull out
23. Upstart is about to perform brilliantly
24. Mark's son with trap holding rat's head

1. Fortification has boats in disarray
2. Rubble I trust Ed to get cleaned up
3. Secret Roger's keeping from the past
4. Lay out money and take in trading 5 for $1000
5. Painter loses registered radio part
6. Price to be paid in Canterbury
7. Flower parts a mantis mutilated
8. Hymn from Norman tradition
9. Morris enjoyed getting stood up
10. Hands pull king out of foundering wreck
11. Sequence of weathered rocks brought up
12. A place to hide money, by the sound of it
13. The Red and the Black, for instance
14. People asking about a legal response
15. Crowd Sullivan entertained
16. Mike Quade, for instance, holding large bat
17. Memory chip embedded in chromium
18. Awfully rude, grabbing date's milk container
19. Flower taken ultimately to the rear
20. Rhus plants cause changes, transforming energy into mass
21. Ultimate form
22. Rabbi included in chef's staff
23. Stick around: time to perform
24. Enigma of author's fable in which love turns to hate finally
25. End of strange rise in pH