Because they were burning with impatience, the three younger members of the Spindrift family did not enjoy the meal, but they made a pretense of eating. Then, an eternity later, Hartson Brant took the last sip of his coffee and grinned at Rick. "Shall we get to it?"
"Shall we!" Barby led the way, holding the cable high.
The first part was easy. Since most pages in the Almanac had three numbers, they assumed that the first three numbers in each code group referred to the page. Similarly, they assumed that the second two numbers referred to the line. That left two numbers for the position of the word on the line.
With nervous fingers Rick turned to Page 521 of the 1950 edition and counted down 30 lines. He hesitated over the subtitles, then decided to count them too. At the proper line, he looked up at Scotty and Barby who were watching over his shoulder.
"But there are two columns."
"Don't worry about the columns," Scotty advised. "I don't think Chahda would pay any attention to the columns, because it would mean extra numbers in each group. Count right across and don't pay any attention to the dividing line."
Rick did so. "It doesn't come out right," he complained. "The number is 39, but there are only 17 words on the whole line."
Barby sighed. "Maybe we're wrong all the way around."
"I don't think so," Hartson Brant said. He was sitting in a comfortable chair, smoking an after-dinner pipe. "The logic of the thing appeals to me. Do you suppose Chahda would know about nulls?"
"What's a null?" Scotty asked.