The dashes following the two a’s stand for letters, each of which should make a word when joined to a. What are these letters? Run over the alphabet and see. The only letters making sense when joined with a are h, m, n, s, t or x. Discarding the first and the last, we have these four words, am, an, as, at. Is it possible to start any intelligible phrase with any two of these arranged in any conceivable way? No. Then [] can not stand for a. Let us see if it does for i. The words of two letters headed by i we find to be if, in, is and it. A more promising collection than the first. One could easily start a phrase with any of these, even with any two of them such as If it, Is in, Is it, It is. [] is then the symbol of i, and some one of the above named combinations forms the beginning of the short phrase ending with a word of three letters symbolized by V [-].< What word? If my reasoning is correct up to this point, it should not be hard to determine. First, one of these three symbols, the V, is a repetition of one of those we have already shown to be s, t, f, or n. Of the remaining two, [-] <, one must be a vowel, that is, it must be either u, e, o, u, or y; i being already determined upon. Now how many [-]’s and <’s do we find in the collection before us? Ten or more of the first, and six, or about six, of the latter. Recalling the table made out by Poe--a table I once learned as a necessary part of my schooling as a cipher interpreter--I ran over it thus: e is the one letter most in use in English. Afterward the succession runs thus a, o, i d, h, n, r, etc. There being then ten [-]’s to six <’s [-] must be a vowel, and in all probability the vowel e, as no other character in the whole collection, save the plentiful squares, is repeated so often. I am a patient woman usually, but I was nervous that night, and, perhaps, too deeply interested in the outcome to do myself justice. I could think of no word with a for one of its three letters which would make sense when added on to It is, Is it, I f it, Is in. Conscious of no mistake, yet always alive to the possibility of one, I dropped the isolated scrap I was working upon and took up the longer and fuller ones, and with them a fresh line of reasoning. If my argument so far had been trustworthy, I should find, in these other specimens, a double [-][-] standing for the double e so frequently found in English. Did I find such? No. Another shock to my theory. Should I, then, give it up? Not while another means of verification remained. The word the should occur more than once in a collection of words as long as the one before me. If U is really e, I should find it at the end of the supposed thes. Do I so find it? There are several words scattered through the whole, of only three letters. Are any of them terminated by U? Not one. My theory is false, then, and I must begin all over.