Judge Jarriquez sat down at the table, took up a sheet of paper and a pencil, and said:
“Now, Mr. Manoel, let us choose a sentence by chance, the first that comes; for instance:
Judge Jarriquez has an ingenious mind.
I write this phrase so as to space the letters different and I get:
Judgejarriquezhasaningeniousmind.
“That done,” said the magistrate, to whom the phrase seemed to contain a proposition beyond dispute, looking Manoel straight in the face, “suppose I take a number by chance, so as to give a cryptographic form to this natural succession of words; suppose now this word is composed of three ciphers, and let these ciphers be 2, 3, and 4. Now on the line below I put the number 234, and repeat it as many times as are necessary to get to the end of the phrase, and so that every cipher comes underneath a letter. This is what we get:
J u d g e j a r r I q u e z h a s a n I n g e n I o u s m I n d 2 3 4 2 3 4 2 3 4 2 3 4 2 3 4 2 3 4 2 3 4 2 3 4 2 3 4 2 3 4 2 3 4 And now, Mr. Manoel, replacing each letter by the letter in advance of it in alphabetical order according to the value of the cipher, we get:
j plus 2 equal l
u plus 3 equal x
d plus 4 equal h
g plus 2 equal i
e plus 3 equal h
j plus 4 equal n
a plus 2 equal c
r plus 3 equal u
r plus 4 equal v
i plus 2 equal k
q plus 3 equal t
u plus 4 equal y
e plus 2 equal g
a plus 3 equal c
h plus 4 equal t
a plus 2 equal c
s plus 3 equal v
a plus 4 equal e
n plus 2 equal p
i plus 3 equal l
n plus 4 equal r
g plus 2 equal i
e plus 3 equal h
n plus 4 equal r
i plus 2 equal k
o plus 3 equal r
u plus 4 equal y
s plus 2 equal u
and so on.
“If, on account of the value of the ciphers which compose the number I come to the end of the alphabet without having enough complementary letters to deduct, I begin again at the beginning. That is what happens at the end of my name when the z is replaced by the 3. As after z the alphabet has no more letters, I commence to count from a, and so get the c. That done, when I get to the end of this cryptographic system, made up of the 234—which was arbitrarily selected, do not forget!—the phrase which you recognize above is replaced by
lxhihncuvktygclveplrihrkryupmpg.