"None of the scholars could. Listen, then: if they all understood each other, they must all have talked the same language—mustn't they?"
"Why, it would seem so."
"It's a sound argument, which can't be denied. Nobody can deny it—I defy them. If they understood each other there must have been a common language. Where did this common language spread? Over all the countries thereabout. What was the common language? Hebrew."
"Oh," said Angela, "then they all talked Hebrew?"
"Every man Jack—nothing else known. What next? They wanted to write it. Now we find what seems to be one character in Egypt, and another in Syria, and another in Arabia, and another in Phœnicia, and another in Judæa. Bless you! I know all about these alphabets. What I say is—if a common language, then a common alphabet to write it with."
"I see. A common alphabet, which you discovered, perhaps?"
"That, young lady, is my discovery—that is the greatest discovery of the age. I found it myself, once a small shoemaker in a little Victorian township—I alone found out that common alphabet, and have come over here to make it known. Not bad, says you, for a shoemaker, who had to teach himself his own Hebrew."
"And the scholars here——"
"They're jealous—that's what it is; they're jealous. Most of them have written books to prove other things, and they won't give in and own that they've been wrong. My word! the scholars——" He paused and shook his hand before her face. "Some of them have got the Hebrew alphabet, and try to make out how one letter is a house and another a bull's head. And so on. And some have got the cuneiforms, and they make out that one bundle of arrows is an A and another a B. And so on. And some have got the hieroglyphic, and it's the same game with all. While I—if you please—with my little plain discovery just show that all the different alphabets—different to outward seeming—are really one and the same."
"This is very interesting," said Angela. The little man was glowing with enthusiasm and pride. He was transformed; he walked up and down throwing about his arms; he stood before her looking almost tall; his eyes flashed with fire, and his voice was strong. "And can you read inscriptions by your simple alphabet?"