Captain Crouch was so amazed that he even paused in the act of lighting his pipe, with the result that he burnt his fingers with the match.
"That's strange," said he. "It may be we've got hold of the wrong end of the stick. What about the rest of it? Have the first letters of the remaining words any sort of meaning?"
Letter by letter Jimmy spelt them out.
"E-I-G-H-S."
"There's a flaw there," said Crouch. "It should end up with a T. That last word should be eight."
By then Jimmy was wildly excited. The whole affair had suddenly become not only interesting, but vastly thrilling.
"What about the last letters of each word?" he exclaimed.
"T-E-D-G," spelt Crouch. "That means nothing, so far as my knowledge goes."
"What's the next letter?" asked the boy.
"E," said Crouch. "T-E-D-G-E, that spells nothing either." Then suddenly his expression changed. "Wait a moment!" he exclaimed. "What about this? Supposing the last word, which is half-speed, counts as one word, and not as two. Take the first letters of each word, and then go back to the beginning and take the last letters. That makes the 't' at the end of steamboat, the last letter of the word 'eight'----"