amount of soap and quite a lot of elbow-grease, but when
he had finished the wood looked as if it had just been newly cut and
trimmed. What took my attention about it was that it was covered from
end to end with queer little marks or scratches. These seemed to
interest Bryce very much, for he pored over them like an antiquary who
has discovered a new kind of hieroglyphics. He got so interested in them
that he forgot my presence altogether. Once when I asked him some simple
question about the dinner he jumped as if he were shot, colored up and
then said, "Oh, I beg your pardon. What did you say?"

I repeated my question and he answered me as if his thoughts were miles
away. He was wide-awake enough when I walked over to the kitchen sink on
some errand or another to slip the wood into his pocket and face me with
a look in his eye that said as plainly as so many words, "You're not
going to steal a march on me, my lad. That's for my eyes alone." Only
once during the dinner-hour did he say anything that stuck in my memory.
On this occasion he turned to me and asked, "Can you use a typewriter?"

"Now, he's going to make a private secretary of me," I thought. "I won't
bite." So I looked him straight in the eye and unblushingly answered
that I couldn't use one if I tried and hoped he didn't want me to learn,
as I was sure I'd only make a mess of it. He seemed rather relieved at
that and later in the afternoon, when I heard the "tick-tack" of his
machine drifting out from the room in which he had locked himself, I
began to wonder just what he had been driving at.

He drifted out to the kitchen later on and asked me to light the fire
for him. I did so and he watched it blaze up, and as soon as he was sure
that it was well alight he drew that inevitable piece of wood from his
pocket, soaked it in kerosene and dropped it into the heart of the fire.
I'm hanged if he didn't sit there and watch it until it had burnt into a
charred heap of ashes. While he had been attending to it he had left a
sheet of typewritten paper down on the table and as he turned to get it
it fluttered to the floor. I was the nearer to it so I picked it up and
handed it to him. As I did so I caught a glimpse of the characters that
covered most of it. I got just the one look at them, but one line I
noticed ran somehow like this--

--31/41/2743 1/23:3; "335 "49--5@3 31/41/2534; 3; L

He looked at me queerly as he took the paper. "Have you ever done any
timbe