Part 25 (2/2)

They chatted until the dawn, by which time their train had reached Paris, and an hour or two later they were on their way to Italy.

Mr. Ganns had determined to cross the Lakes and arrive unexpectedly at Menaggio. He had now turned his mind once more to the problem before him and spoke but little. He sat with his notebook open and made an occasional entry as he pursued his thoughts. Mark read newspapers and presently handed a page to Mr. Ganns.

”What you said about acrostics interested me,” he began. ”Here's one and I've been trying to guess it for an hour. No doubt it ought to be easy; but I expect there's a catch. Wonder if it will puzzle you.”

Peter smiled and dropped his notebook.

”Acrostics are a habit of mind,” he said. ”You grow to think acrostically and be up to all the tricks of the trade. You soon get wise to the way that people think who make them; and then you'll find they all think alike and all try to hoodwink you along the same lines. If you tempt me on to acrostics, you'll soon wish you had not.”

Mark pointed to the puzzle.

”Try that,” he said. ”I can't make head or tail of it; yet I dare say you'll thrash it out if you've got the acrostic mind.”

Mr. Ganns cast his eye over the puzzle. It ran thus:

When to the North you go, The folk shall greet you so.

1. Upright and light and Source of Light 2. And Source of Light, reversed, are plain.

3. A term of scorn comes into sight And Source of Light, reversed again.

The American regarded the problem for a minute in silence, then smiled and handed the paper back to Brendon.

”Quite neat, in its little conventional way,” he said. ”It's on the regular English pattern. Our acrostics are a trifle smarter, but all run into one form. The great acrostic writer isn't born. If acrostics were as big a thing as chess, then we should have masters who would produce masterpieces.”

”But this one--d'you see it?”

”Milk for babes, Mark.”

Mr. Ganns turned to his notebook, wrote swiftly into it, tore out the page, and handed the solution to his companion.

Brendon read:

G O D Omega Alph A D O G

”If you know Knut Hamsun's stories, then you guess it instantly. If not, you might possibly be bothered,” he said, while Brendon stared.

”There are two ways with acrostics,” continued Peter, full of animation, ”the first is to make lights so difficult that they turn your hair grey till you've got them, the second--just traps--perhaps three perfectly sound answers to the same light, but the second just a shade sounder than the first, and the third a shade sounder than either of the others.”

”Who makes acrostics like that?”

”n.o.body. Life's too short; but if I devoted a year to a perfect acrostic, you bet your life it would take my fellow creatures a year to guess it. The same with cryptography, which we've both run up against, no doubt, in course of business. Cyphers are mostly crude; but I've often thought what a right down beauty it might be possible to make, given a little pains. The detective story writers make very good ones sometimes; but then the smart man, who wipes everybody's eyes, always gets 'em--by pulling down just the right book from the villain's library. My cryptograph won't depend on books.”

Peter chattered on; then he suddenly stopped and turned to his notes again.

He looked up presently.

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