“We are agreed in all points, then.  If you will come into my room “—­we were by this time arrived at the house—­“you shall have your first lesson in cryptography.”

I assented with eagerness, for I was burning to begin, and, from what Mr. Fortescue had said, I did not anticipate any great difficulty in making out the cipher.

But when he produced a specimen page of his manuscript, my confidence, like Bob Acre’s courage, oozed out at my finger-ends, or rather, all over me, for I broke out into a cold sweat.

The first few lines resembled a confused array of algebraic formula. (I detest algebra.) Then came several lines that seemed to have been made by the crawlings of tipsy flies with inky legs, followed by half a dozen or so that looked like the ravings of a lunatic done into Welsh, while the remainder consisted of Roman numerals and ordinary figures mixed up, higgledy-piggledy.

“This is nothing less than appalling,” I almost groaned.  “It will take me longer to learn than two or three languages.”

“Oh, no!  When you have got the clew, and learned the signs, you will read the cipher with ease.”

“Very likely; but when will that be?”

“Soon.  The system is not nearly so complicated as it looks, and the language being English—­”

“English!  It looks like a mixture of ancient Mexican and modern Chinese.”

“The language being English, nothing could be easier for a man of ordinary intelligence.  If I had expected that my manuscript would fall into the hands of a cryptographist, I should have contrived something much more complicated and written it in several languages; and you have the key ready to your hand.  Come, let us begin.”

After half an hour’s instruction I began to see daylight, and to feel that with patience and practice I should be able to write out the story in legible English.  The little I had read with Mr. Fortescue made me keen to know more; but as the cryptographic narrative did not begin at the beginning, he proposed that I should write this, as also any other missing parts, to his dictation.

“Who knows that you may not make a book of it?” he said.

“Do you think I am intelligent Enough?” I asked, resentfully; for his uncomplimentary references to my mental capacity were still rankling in my mind.

“I should hope so.  Everybody writes in these days.  Don’t worry yourself on that score, my dear Mr. Bacon.  Even though you may write a book, nobody will accuse you of being exceptionally intelligent.”

“But I cannot make a book of your narrative without your leave,” I observed, with a painful sense of having gained nothing by my motion.

“And that leave may be sooner or later forthcoming, on conditions.”

As the reader will find in the sequel, the leave has been given and the conditions have been fulfilled, and Mr. Fortescue’s personal narrative—­partly taken down from his own dictation, but for the most part extended from his manuscript—­begins with the following chapter.