"No, but I'll tell you what I think it is," answered Diggory, sitting down, and speaking in a low, mysterious tone: "it's a letter written in cipher."
"A letter?" repeated Mugford, glancing at the paper. "Why, how could any one read that rubbish—NVVG?"
"Of course they can, if they know the key. Didn't I say it was written in cipher, you duffer? Every letter you see there stands for something different."
"Then why didn't they write the proper letters at once, and have done with it?" grumbled Mugford.
"Because, you prize ass," retorted Diggory, with pardonable asperity, "they didn't want it read."
"Then if they didn't want it read, why did they write it at all?" exclaimed Mugford triumphantly.
"Oh, shut up! you're cracked, you—"
"Look here," interrupted Jack Vance, "where did you find the thing?"
"Why, you know the window in the box-room that looks out on the 'quad;' well, there's a little crack under the ledge between the wooden frame and the wall, and this note was stuck in there. I should never have seen it, only I was watching a spider crawling up the wall, and it ran into the hole close to the end of the paper. Some fellows must be using the place as a sort of post-office; don't you remember Fred Acton made one in the wainscotting at The Birches? only these fellows have invented a cipher. Well, I'm going to find it out, and read this note, just for the lark."
"How are you going to do it, though? I don't see it's possible to read a thing like this; you can't tell where one word ends and a fresh one begins."