r than you'd think. Now listen. Wouldn't
you understand me if I said: 'D y w t g t t g p?'"

"Say it again, please, and say it slowly."

Sinclair repeated the letters, and Patty clapped her hands, crying: "Yes,
yes, of course I understand. You mean 'Do you want to go to the garden
party?' Now, listen to me while I answer: Y I w t g i i d r."

"Good!" exclaimed Mabel. "You said: 'Yes, I want to go, if it doesn't
rain.' Oh, you are a quick pupil."

"But those are such easy sentences," said Patty, as she considered the
matter.

"That's the point," said Bob, "most sentences, at least, the ones we use
most, _are_ easy. If I should meet you unexpectedly, and say H d y d?
you'd know I meant How do you do? Or if I took leave, and said G b, you'd
understand good-bye. Those are the simplest possible examples. Now, on
the other hand, if I were to read you a long speech from the morning
paper, you'd probably miss many of the long words, but that's the other
extreme. We've talked in initials for years, and rarely are we uncertain
as to the sense, though we may sometimes skip a word here and there."

"But what good is it?" asked Patty.

"No good at all," admitted Bob; "but it's fun. And after you're used to
it, you can talk that way so fast that any one listening couldn't guess
what you are saying. Sometimes when we're riding on an omnibus, or
anything like that, it's fun to talk initials and mystify the people."

"D y o d t?" said Patty, her eyes twinkling.

"Yes, we often do that," returned Bob, greatly gratified at the rapid
progress of the new pupil. "You must be fond of puzzles, to catch this up
so quickly."

"I am," said Patty. "I've guessed puzzles ever since I was a little girl.
I always solve all I can find in the papers, and sometimes I take prizes
for them."

"We do that too," said Mabel; "and sometimes we make puzzles and send
them to the papers and they print them. Let's make some for each other
this evening."

After dinner the young people gathered round the table in the pleasant
library, and were soon busy with paper and pencils. Patty found the
Hartleys a match for her in quickness and ingenuity, but she was able to
guess as great a proportion of their puzzles as they of hers.

After amusing themselves with square words and double acrostics, they
drifted to conundrums, and Bob asked:

"Which letter of the Dutch alphabet spells an English lady of rank?"

"That's not fair," objected Patty, "because I d