I stared at him surprisedly.
“And,” he continued, “you and I are going to solve it if we sit up all night!”
“How do you propose to begin?”
“Well, as it appears to mean nothing in particular, as it stands, I thought of beginning by assuming that the letters have other values altogether. Therefore, upon the basis that e is the letter which most frequently occurs in English, with a, o, i, d, h, n, r, afterwards, I had thought of resolving it into its component letters.”
“But would that rule apply to mediæval English?”
“Ah,” said Lorian thoughtfully, “most sage counsellor! A wise and timely thought! I’m afraid it wouldn’t.”
“What now?”
Lorian scratched his head in perplexity.
“Suppose,” he suggested, “we write down the words plainly, and see if, treating each one separately, we can find other meanings to them.”