“‘Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.’”
he declaimed.
Jeff whirled around. “Hello, here you are! Any news from our employer?” He rose with a sigh of relief and mopped his brow. “Gee! I’ve got to work the Jim-fidgets out of my fingers.”
Ignoring the query, Aughinbaugh took a step forward, drew up his slender frame, inflated his chest, spread one hand upon it, and threw up his other hand with a flourish of limber fingers. “‘Now is the time,’” he spouted forth at Bransford, mouthing the well-known words, “‘for all good men and true to come to the aid of the party!’”
Jeff grinned sheepishly. “I’ll dream that cussed thing to-night. How long did it take you to learn to play a tune on this fool contraption, anyhow?”
“It took me three months—to play on it anyhow. But then I already knew how to spell. I’ve been at it two years since and am still improving. I should estimate that you would need about eight years. Better give it up. Try a maul or a piledriver. More suited to your capabilities. Why, Jeff, a really good stenographer can do first-class work in the dark.”
“Eight years? George, you’re an optimist. I’ve worked two solid hours on this one ‘simple little sentence,’ as you call it, and I’ve never got it right once. Sometimes I’ve come within one letter of it. Once I made a mighty effort and got all the letters right, but I forgot to space and ran the words together. And say—that simple little sentence hasn’t got near all the letters in it. B, j, k, q, v, x and z are left out.”
“Here, then—here’s one that contains every letter: ‘A quick move by the enemy will jeopardize six fine gunboats.’”
Jeff pulled pad and pencil to him. “Give me that again and I’ll take it down.” Repeating the alphabet slowly, he canceled each letter as he went. “Right you are! Say, the fellow that got that up was on the job, wasn’t he? Why didn’t you give me this one in the first place? Wonder if it’s possible to get ’em all in another sentence as short?”