e 5) and yet avoid the damnable appearance of a word
(Rule 4). The concession about Russian names reminds me of something I have
read about shaking hands with murder. In any case it is a barren
concession, because, as we have seen, telegraphic addresses must be
pronounceable. There is something sinister here," I continued. "This is the
work of no ordinary mind. Some legal brain is behind all this."

Love of the bizarre and the latitude of the Russian Rule led me to make my
first attempt with the name of that all-round Bolshevik sportsman,
BLODNJINKOFF, and I was endeavouring to abridge it to not less than eight
and not more than ten letters without spoiling the natural beauty of the
name when Aitchkin stopped me rather brusquely. And my next effort,
"PLUCROES," he quashed, because he said that the implacable suspicion of
the G.P.O. would be at once aroused by the diphthong. I fancy, though, from
the narrowing of his eyes that he had some misgivings as to the derivation
of the word.

I then set to work with alternate consonants and vowels (which must give a
pronounceable word), dealing with difficulties under the other rules as
they might arise. Meanwhile Aitchkin, after the manner of an obstructionist
official of the worst type, sat over me with the rules, condemning my
results. Even "Telegrams: HAHAHAHAHA London," merely caused him to sniff
contemptuously.

"You'll like this one," I exclaimed--"ARLEYOTA. This is a combination of
the word 'barley' (the 'b' being treated as obsolete like the 'n' in
'norange') and the word 'oat' with the 'a' and 't' transposed."

Aitchkin was interested. Breathing heavily, he tested the word with each
rule in turn, while I sat relaxed in my chair. I pictured ARLEYOTA passed
by the Department and brought into a hushed chamber before a solemn
conclave of experts. How they would probe and analyse it during those
momentous ten to fourteen days. And what a sensation there would be when
they discovered that ARLEYOTA begins and ends with the indefinite article.

Aitchkin thrust the papers into his pocket and rose abruptly, jamming the
stopper more tightly into a decanter with his podgy hand.

"Not too bad, ARLEYOTA," he said loftily; "I'll get them to polish it up at
the office to-morrow." (So I _was_ right about the lady-typist).

He opened the door and we passed out.

"But it ends in TA," he shouted against the _Roses of Picardy_ which now
came with unbroken force from the drawing-room.