“Very well, get me another envelope from the nearest telegraph-office. I see this is for my partner, not for me.”
He threw half-a-dollar on the table, which the boy grasped eagerly.
“Be as quick as you can,” cried Steele, before he reached the door.
The cipher telegram was a long one, but speedily Steele wrote it out on a sheet of paper. When the boy returned with the envelope, Steele placed the telegram within it, sealed it, and addressed it in imitation of the telegraphic clerk. Then he walked into the adjoining office and placed the resealed telegram on Mr. Metcalfe’s desk.
“Now, why does honest William Metcalfe receive a long telegram in cipher from New York?” said Steele to himself, knitting his brows. “He has never even mentioned New York to me, yet he is in secret communication with someone there. Lord! one can never tell when the biggest sort of crank will not suddenly loom up as the most useful man in the world!” cried Steele, as he suddenly bethought himself of Billy Brooks, a jocular person who bored all Chicago with his knowledge of cipher, claiming there was nothing he couldn’t unravel except the Knock Alphabet cipher of the Russian Nihilists. And Billy had his office in the fifteenth storey of the adjoining block. Steele shoved the copy of the telegram in his trousers’ pocket, put on his silk hat, went down one elevator, and up another, in almost less time than it takes to tell about it.
“Say, Billy, I’ve got a cipher here that you can’t decode, and I’ve got twenty dollars to bet on it.”
“Let’s see your cipher,” cried Billy, his eyes sparkling. “All ciphers fall into seven distinct classes. These classes are then sub-divided into——”
“Yes, I know, I know!” cried Steele impatiently. “Here’s the message.”
Billy glanced at it.
“Hand over your twenty dollars, Steele.”