"And now for the conditions. In the first place, you must, in stenographic phrase, 'extend' my notes, write out the narrative in a legible hand and good English. If there be any blanks, I will fill them up; if you require explanations, I will give them. Do you agree?" "I agree." "The second condition is that you neither make use of the narrative for any purpose of your own, nor disclose the whole or any part of it to anybody until and unless I give you leave. What say you?" "I say yes." "The third and last condition is, that you engage to stay with me in your present capacity until it pleases me to give you your _congé_. Again what say you?" This was rather a "big order," and very one-sided. It bound me to remain with Mr. Fortescue for an indefinite period, yet left him at liberty to dismiss me at a moment's notice; and if he went on living, I might have to stay at Kingscote till I was old and gray. All the same, the position was a good one. I had four hundred a year (the price at which I had modestly appraised my services), free quarters, a pleasant life, and lots of hunting--all I could wish for, in fact; and what can a man have more? So again I said, "Yes." "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."