“But why don’t you tell us what your idea is right now?”
“Because I don’t want to. At any rate it’s only an idea and I don’t know whether it’s right or not and I haven’t worked it out myself. That’s what we are doing now and I want you all to help me. The whole thing may be wrong, but it sounds pretty good to me. John’s remark about the number of letters in the alphabet gave me the idea.”
“Then I ought to get the credit if we solve the code,” exclaimed John.
“You’ll be lucky if you don’t get shot,” said George. “You ought to be.”
“Go ahead with your explanation, Grant,” urged Fred. “Everybody keep quiet and give him a chance.”
“All right,” said Grant. “We’ve noticed that the highest number is twenty-five and that there are twenty-six letters in the alphabet, haven’t we?”
“We have,” said John so solemnly that George giggled outright. His friends, however, were in a very serious mood and he quickly realized that his hilarity was decidedly out of place.
“What number appears most frequently?”
“I guess fourteen does,” said Fred after a hasty survey of the figures spread out on the ground before them.
“No, five,” exclaimed John. “There are a good many more fives than there are fourteens.”