“No,” he answered: “because he knew very well that you’d apply to me to help you out of the difficulty.”
“Well, help me,” I said, “and, in the matter of Bacon, I’ll promise to be a fool convinced against my will.”
“No doubt,” he answered drily, and came and sat beside me. “Look here,” he said; and I looked:—
“You know your notes, anyhow,” said he. “Well, you’ve only got to read off these into their alphabetical equivalents, and cut the result into perfectly obvious lengths. It’s child’s play so far; and, indeed, in everything, unless this rum-looking metronome beat, or whatever it may be, bothers you for a moment.”
He put his finger on the crazy device perched up independently in the left-hand corner; and then came down to the lines again.
“Let that be for the moment,” said he. “It don’t much signify, after all. How do these notes go? that’s the main question. Read ’em off.”
I spelt them out, following his finger: “b a c e f d e c a d e c.”
“That’s a good boy,” he said. “And now, what are these things beyond, that have run off the lines, so to speak?”
“What are they? Why, I don’t see what they can be but notes.”