LITMIR.BIZ

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p a d i f b l b t, etc. The most frequent compounds are th, ng, ee, ll, mm, tt, dd, nn. Pray, Matthew, do you see any one sign repeated oftener than the others in this cryptograph?”

      “Yes, 8; it is repeated twenty-three times,” said Fletcher, after a pause.

      “Then you may be perfectly satisfied that it stands for e, which is used far oftener than any other letter in English. Next, look along the lines and see what letters most frequently accompany it.”

      “2 § undoubtedly; it follows 8 in several places, and precedes it in others. In the third line we have 2 § 8 – 82 § – § 8 – 8 § 8 and then 2 § 8 again.”

      “Then we may fairly assume that 2 § 8 stands for the.”

      “The, to be sure,” burst forth Fletcher. “Now the next word will be money. No! it can’t be, the e will not suit; perhaps it is treasure, gold, hoard, store.”

      “Wait a little bit,” I interposed. “Now look what letters are doubled.”

      “88 and 22,” said my friend Mat.

      “And please observe,” I continued, “that where I draw a line and write A you have e, then double t, then e again. Probably this is the middle of a word, and as we have already supposed 2 to stand for t, we have – ette – , a very likely combination. We may be sure of the t now. Near the end of the third line, there is a remarkable passage, in which the three letters we know recur continually. Let us write it out, leaving blanks for the letters we do not know, and placing the ascertained letters instead of their symbols. Then it stands – eχtheχeth – heχeheχ ethe – . Now here I have a χ repeated four times, and from its position it must be a consonant. I will put in its place one consonant after another. You see r is the only one which turns the letters into words. —erthereth – here. here the —surely some of these should stand out distinctly separated —er there th – here. here the. Look! I can see at once what letters are wanting; th — between there and here must be than, and then ✠ here is, must be, where. So now I have found these letters,

8 = e, r = t, § = h, χ = r, – = a, + = n, ✠ = w,

      and I can confirm the χ as r by taking the portion marked A– etter. Here we get an end of an adjective in the comparative degree; I think it must be better.”

      “Let us next take a group of cyphers higher up; I will pencil over it D. I take this group because it contains some of the letters which we have settled – eathn. Eath must be the end of a word, for none begins with athn, thn, or hn. Now what letter will suit eath? Possibly h, probably d.”

      “Yes,” exclaimed Fletcher, “Death, to be sure. I can guess it all: ‘Death is approaching, and I feel that a solemn duty devolves upon me, namely, that of acquainting Matthew Fletcher, my heir, with the spot where I have hidden my savings.’ Go on, go on.”

      “All in good time, friend,” I laughed. “You observe we can confirm our guess as to the sign) being used for d, by comparing the passage – 29§ – )*8228χ, which we now read, t. had better. But t. had better is awkward; you cannot make 9 into o; ‘to had,’ would be no sense.”

      “Of course not,” burst forth Fletcher. “Don’t you see it all? I had better let my excellent nephew know where I have deposited – ”

      “Wait a bit,” interrupted I; “you are right, I believe. I is the signification of 9. Let us begin the whole cryptograph now: —N.tethi.i.t.re.ind.e.”

      “Remind me!” cried Fletcher.

      “You have it again,” said I. “Now we obtain an additional letter besides m, for t. remind me is certainly to remind me. We must begin again: —Note thi.i. to remind me.”

      “This is,” called out my excited friend, whose eyes were sparkling with delight and expectation. “Go on; you are a trump!”

      “These, then, are our additional letters: – ) = d, 7 = m, β = s, 9 = i, λ = o. To remind me i.i. ee. m. death ni.h; for m. death, I read my death, and i. i. ee., I guess to be, if I feel. So it stands thus: – ‘Note. – This is to remind me, if I feel my death nigh, that I had better – ’”

      I worked on now in silence; Fletcher, leaning his chin on his hands, sat opposite, staring into my face with breathless anxiety. Presently I exclaimed:

      “Halves, Mat! I think you said halves!”

      “I – I – I – I – my very dear fellow, I – ”

      “A very excellent man was your uncle; a most exemplary – ”

      “All right, I know that,” said Fletcher, cutting me short. “Do read the paper; I have a spade and pick on my library table, all ready for work the moment I know where to begin.”

      “But, really, he was a man in a thousand, a man of such discretion, such foresight, so much – ”

      Down came Fletcher’s hand on the desk.

      “Do go on!” he cried; and I could see that he was swearing internally; he would have sworn ore rotundo, only that it would have been uncivil, and decidedly improper.

      “Very well; you are prepared to hear all?”

      “All! by Jove! by Jingo! prepared for everything.”

      “Then this is what I read,” said I, taking up my own transcript: —

      “Note. – This is to remind me, if I feel my death nigh, that I had better move to Birmingham, as burials are done cheaper there than here, where the terms of the Necropolis Company are exorbitant.”

      Fletcher bounded from his seat. “The old skinflint! miser! screw!”

      “A very estimable and thrifty man, your great-uncle.”

      “Confounded old stingy – ,” and he slammed the door upon himself and the substantive which designated his uncle.

      And now, the very best advice I can give to my readers, is to set to work at once on the simple cypher given near the commencement of this paper, and to find it out.

      STRANGE WILLS

      Of course we ought to begin with Adam’s will, the father of all wills; and if we could produce that patriarchal document, we should undoubtedly find in it the germs of all the merits, faults, and eccentricities of wills to come. But, unfortunately, though a testament of Adam does exist, it is a forgery; and nothing will convince us to the contrary, – not even the Mussulman tradition, which asserts that on the occasion of our great forefather beginning to make his bequests, seventy legions of angels brought him sheets of paper and quill pens, nicely nibbed, all the way from Paradise; and that the Archangel Gabriel set-to his seal as witness. What! four hundred and twenty thousand sheets of paper! – surely a needless consumption of material, when there was nothing to be bequeathed but a view over the hedge of an impracticable garden.

      If we pass to Noah’s testament, we are again among the apocrypha. In it, Noah portions his landed property, the globe, into three shares, one for each son: America is not included in the division for obvious reasons. It was left for “manners” sake, and manners has never got it.

      The testament of the twelve Patriarchs must be glanced at, which is received as semi-canonical by the Armenian Church, though it is unquestionably apocryphal. Reuben speaks of sleep as having been in Paradise, only a sweet ecstasy; whereas, after the Fall, it has become a continually recurring image of death. Simeon bewails his former hostility to Joseph; and relates, that his brother’s bones were preserved in the Royal treasury of Egypt. Levi is oracular; Judah rejoices in the sceptre left to his race; Issachar unfolds the future of the Jews; Zebulun relates that the brethren supplied themselves with shoes from the money which they got by the sale of Joseph. There seems to be some allusion to this tradition in the Prophet Amos (ii. 6; viii. 6). Dan recommends his posterity to practise humility; Naphtali sees visions; Gad is contrite; Asher prophesies the

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