instead of "gin-sling" he should read "green seal," but there was none
of that brand of champagne in the wine closet. Further investigation led
him to adopt the reading, "please put on full swing." This, however, he
abandoned as not exactly a feminine exhortation in that particular
matter. Then for "gin-sling" he read "gunning," and "gun sing," and
"grinning," all of course to be abandoned in their turn. Submitted to an
expert, the elegant lines were pronounced to be unmistakably, "Key of
wine closet. Recase pat on gnu eing," not a highly intelligible letter
of instruction. Finally, in his perplexity, he remembered something that
the lady had once said upon the subject of the danger of leaving the
particular key in question lying about loose or even in an accessible
drawer, and then it flashed upon him that the writing was, or was meant
to be, "Key of wine closet. Please put on your ring." Hence it appears
that the elegant English hand is very easily read when you know what the
fair writer means to say. Observe, too, that the perplexity would have
been obviated by the introduction of a much needed pronoun--_it_. If the
lady had written, "Put it," etc., there would have been a guide out of
the labyrinth. No small part of the obscurity found in writing arises
from compression. It is better to take the trouble to write two words,
and thereby be understood, than to write one, in angular Anglican
elegance, and leave your reader in darkness.

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