When we were left alone with our cigars he unburdened his soul. It appears that, ever since the Armistice, ambition has spurred Aitchkin to be something more than the "& Co." of a firm which has become torpid with war profits. He had decided to start in business "on his lonesome," and to make "Aitchkin" and "forage" synonymous terms. Already he had taken over the premises of a sovereign purse-maker at a "reasonable figure." (When Aitchkin is "reasonable" somebody loses money.) But his bargain did not include a Telegraphic Address, and that morning, working from his letter-heading, "Alfred Aitchkin," he had brought himself to compose an appropriate word. To the "Alf" of the Christian name he added "Alpha" representing the initial of the surname (I suspected the assistance of his lady-typist), making the complete word "Alf-Alpha" or, written phonetically, "Alfalfa"--Spanish for lucerne. It was a word which could not fail to fix itself indelibly in the minds of his clients, for it recalled not only Aitchkin's name, but the commodity he dealt in. Full of the pride of authorship he had driven round to the G.P.O. in his touring car. "But they crabbed it at once," he said sadly. "Telegraphic addresses nowadays have to conform to a lot of rotten new rules." He handed me a slip of paper on which, over the dead body of "Alfalfa," he had jotted down the following notes:-- (1) Not less than eight, not more than ten letters. (2) Must not be composed of words or parts of words. (3) Words or parts of words may be accepted if they appear in the middle. (4) Must not look like a word. (5) Must be pronounceable. (6) Russian names, on account of their unusual spelling might be accepted. "And what's more," Aitchkin continued, "even when you've got a word which the Department will accept, it has to be submitted to a Committee who take 'ten to fourteen days' to make up their minds." A faint tinkling of the piano came to our ears. Mrs. Aitchkin was waiting to sing to us. I produced pencil and paper and threw myself heart and soul into Aitchkin's problem. "Rules 2 and 3 are a little contradictory," I said, "and it will require no slight ingenuity to form a combination of letters which shall be pronounceable (Rule 5) and yet avoid the damnable appearance of a word (Rule 4). The concession about Russian names reminds me of something I have read about shaking hands with murder. In any case it is a barren concession, because, as we have seen, telegraphic addresses must be pronounceable. There is something sinister here," I continued. "This is the work of no ordinary mind. Some legal brain is behind all this."