It is thought that _hit_ means _hid_ as in Chaucer's Squiere's Tale, line 512 etc. "Right as a serpent _hit_ him under floures Til he may seen his tyme for to byte" If indeed "hit" be intended to be read as "hid" then these ten lines are no longer the cryptic puzzle which they have hitherto been considered to be, but in conjunction with the portrait, they clearly reveal the true facts, that the real author is writing left-handedly, that means secretly, in shadow, with his face hidden behind a mask or pseudonym. We should also notice "out-doo" is spelled with a hyphen. In the language of to-day and still more in that of the time of Shakespeare all, or nearly all, words beginning with _out_ may be read reversed, out-bar is bar out, out-bud is bud out, out-crop is crop out, out-fit is fit out, and so on through the alphabet. If therefore we may read "out-doo the life" as "doo out the life" meaning "shut out the real face of the living man" we perceive that here also we are told "that the real face is hidden." The description, with the head line "To the Reader" and the signature "B.I.," forms twelve lines, the words of which can be turned into numerous significant anagrams, etc., to which, however, no allusion is made in the present work. But our readers will find that if all the letters are counted (the two v.v.'s in line nine being counted as four letters) they will amount to the number 287. In subsequent chapters a good deal is said about this number, but here we only desire to say that we are "informed" that the "Great Author" intended to reveal himself 287 years after 1623, the date when the First Folio was published, that is in the present year, 1910, when very numerous tongues will be loosened. Examine once more the original Stratford Bust, Plate 5, Page 14, and the present Stratford Bust, Plate 6, Page 15, _with the large pen in the right hand_. If the Stratford actor were indeed the author of the plays it was most appropriate that he should have a pen in his hand. But in the original monument as shewn in Plate 3, Page 8, the figure hugs a sack of wool or a pocket of hops or may be a cushion. For about 120 years, this continued to be the Stratford effigy and shewed nothing that could in any way connect the man portrayed, with literary work. I believe that this was not accidental. I think that everybody in Stratford must have known that William "Sha_c_kspeare" could not write so much as his own name, for I assert that we possess nothing which can by any reasonable possibility be deemed to be his signature. [Illustration: Decorative Chapter Heading] CHAPTER III. The so-called "Signatures."