Short Stories Old and New - Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
"In the present case--indeed in all cases of secret writing--the first
question regards the _language_ of the cipher; for the principles of
solution, so far, especially, as the more simple ciphers are concerned,
depend on, and are varied by, the genius of the particular idiom. In
general, there is no alternative but experiment (directed by
probabilities) of every tongue known to him who attempts the solution,
until the true one be attained. But, with the cipher now before us, all
difficulty is removed by the signature. The pun upon the word 'Kidd' is
appreciable in no other language than the English. But for this
consideration I should have begun my attempts with the Spanish and
French, as the tongues in which a secret of this kind would most
naturally have been written by a pirate of the Spanish Main. As it was,
I assumed the cryptograph to be English.
"You observe there are no divisions between the words. Had there been
divisions, the task would have been comparatively easy. In such case I
should have commenced with a collation and analysis of the shorter
words, and, had a word of a single letter occurred, as is most likely
(_a_ or _I_, for example), I should have considered the solution as
assured. But, there being no division, my first step was to ascertain
the predominant letters, as well as the least frequent. Counting all, I
constructed a table, thus:
Of the character 8 there are 33
; " 26
4 " 19
$) " 16
* " 13
5 " 12
6 " 11
+1 " 8
0 " 6
92 " 5
:3 " 4
? " 3
" 2
]--. " 1
"Now, in English, the letter which most frequently occurs is _e_.
Afterwards the succession runs thus: _a o i d h n r s t u y c f g l m w
b k p q x z. E_ predominates, however, so remarkably that an individual
sentence of any length is rarely seen, in which it is not the prevailing
character.
"Here, then, we have, in the very beginning, the groundwork for
something more than a mere guess. The general use which may be made of
the table is obvious--but, in this particular cipher, we shall only very
partially require its aid. As our predominant character is 8, we will
commence by assuming it as the _e_ of the natural alphabet. To verify
the supposition, let us observe if the 8 be seen often in couples--for
_e_ is doubled with great frequency in English--in such words, for
example, as 'meet,' 'fleet,' speed,' 'seen,' 'been,' 'agree,' etc. In
the present instance we see it doubled no less than five times, although
the cryptograph is brief.
"Let us assume 8, then, as _e_. Now of all _words_ in the language,
'the' is most usual; let us see, therefore, whether there are not
repetitions of any three characters, in the same order of collocation,
the last of them being 8. If we discover repetitions of such letters, so
arranged, they will most probably represent the word 'the.' On
inspection, we find no less than seven such arrangements, the characters
being ;48. We may, therefore, assume that the semicolon represents _t_,
that 4 represents _h_, and that 8 represents _e_--the last being now
well confirmed. Thus a great step has been taken.
"But, having established a single word, we are enabled to establish a
vastly important point; that is to say, several commencements and
terminations of other words. Let us refer, for example, to the last
instance but one, in which the combination ;48 occurs--not far from the
end of the cipher. We know that the semicolon immediately ensuing is the
commencement of a word, and, of the six characters succeeding this
'the,' we are cognizant of no less than five. Let us set these
characters down, thus, by the letters we know them to represent, leaving
a space for the unknown--
t eeth.
"Here we are enabled, at once, to discard the '_th_,' as forming no
portion of the word commencing with the first _t_; since, by experiment
of the entire alphabet for a letter adapted to the vacancy, we perceive
that no word can be formed of which this _th_ can be a part. We are thus
narrowed into
t ee,
and, going through the alphabet, if necessary, as before, we arrive at
the word 'tree' as the sole possible reading. We thus gain another
letter, _r_, represented by (, with the words 'the tree' in
juxtaposition.
"Looking beyond these words, for a short distance, we again see the
combination ;48, and employ it by way of _termination_ to what
immediately precedes. We have thus this arrangement:
the tree;4($?34 the,
or, substituting the natural letters, where known, it reads thus:
the tree thr$?3h the.
"Now, if, in place of the unknown characters, we leave blank spaces, or
substitute dots, we read thus:
the tree thr...h the,
when the word '_through_' makes itself evident at once. But this
discovery gives us three new letters, _o, u_, and _g_, represented by $,
? and 3.
"Looking now, narrowly, through the cipher for combinations of known
characters, we find, not very far from the beginning, this arrangement:
83(88, or egree,
which, plainly, is the conclusion of the word 'degree,' and gives us
another letter, _d_, represented by +.
"Four letters beyond the word 'degree,' we perceive the combination,
;46(;88*.
"Translating the known characters, and representing the unknown by dots,
as before, we read thus:
th.rtee.
an arrangement immediately suggestive of the word 'thirteen,' and again
furnishing us with two new characters, _i_ and_n_, represented by 6 and
*.
"Referring, now, to the beginning of the cryptograph, we find the
combination,
53$$+.
"Translating as before, we obtain
good,
which assures us that the first letter is _A_, and that the first two
words are 'A good.'
"To avoid confusion, it is now time that we arrange our key, as far as
discovered, in a tabular form. It will stand thus:
5 represents a
+ " d
8 " e
3 " g
4 " h
6 " i
* " n
$ " o
( " r
; " t
"We have, therefore, no less than ten of the most important letters
represented, and it will be unnecessary to proceed with the details of
the solution. I have said enough to convince you that ciphers of this
nature are readily soluble, and to give you some insight into the
rationale of their development. But be assured that the specimen before
us appertains to the very simplest species of cryptograph. It now only
remains to give you the full translation of the characters upon the
parchment, as unriddled. Here it is:
"'_A good glass in the bishop's hostel in the devil's seat twenty one
degrees and thirteen minutes northeast and by north main branch seventh
limb east side shoot from the left eye of the death's-head a bee line
from the tree through the shot fifty feet out_.'"
"But," said I, "the enigma seems still in as bad a condition as ever.
How is it possible to extort a meaning from all this jargon about
'devil's seats,' 'death's-head,' and 'bishop's hostel'?"
"I confess," replied Legrand, "that the matter still wears a serious
aspect, when regarded with a casual glance. My first endeavor was to
divide the sentence into the natural division intended by the
cryptographist."
"You mean, to punctuate it?"
"Something of that kind."
"But how is it possible to effect this?"
"I reflected that it had been a _point_ with the writer to run his words
together without division, so as to increase the difficulty of solution.
Now, a not over-acute man, in pursuing such an object, would be nearly
certain to overdo the matter. When, in the course of his composition, he
arrived at a break in his subject which would naturally require a pause,
or a point, he would be exceedingly apt to run his characters, at this
place, more than usually close together. If you will observe the MS., in
the present instance, you will easily detect five such cases of unusual
crowding. Acting on this hint, I made the division thus:
"'_A good glass in the Bishop's hostel in the devil's seat--twenty-one
degrees and thirteen minutes--northeast and by north--main branch
seventh limb east side--shoot from the left eye of the death's-head--a
bee-line from the tree through the shot fifty feet out_.'"
"Even this division," said I, "leaves me still in the dark."
"It left me also in the dark," replied Legrand, "for a few days; during
which I made diligent inquiry, in the neighborhood of Sullivan's Island,
for any building which went by the name of the 'Bishop's Hotel'; for, of
course, I dropped the obsolete word 'hostel.' Gaining no information on
the subject, I was on the point of extending my sphere of search, and
proceeding in a more systematic manner, when one morning it entered into
my head, quite suddenly, that this 'Bishop's Hostel' might have some
reference to an old family, of the name of Bessop, which, time out of
mind, had held possession of an ancient manor-house, about four miles to
the northward of the island. I accordingly went over to the plantation,
and reinstituted my inquiries among the older negroes of the place. At
length one of the most aged of the women said that she had heard of such
a place as _Bessop's Castle_, and thought that she could guide me to it,
but that it was not a castle, nor a tavern, but a high rock.
"I offered to pay her well for her trouble, and, after some demur, she
consented to accompany me to the spot. We found it without much
difficulty, when, dismissing her, I proceeded to examine the place. The
'castle' consisted of an irregular assemblage of cliffs and rocks--one
of the latter being quite remarkable for its height as well as for its
insulated and artificial appearance. I clambered to its apex, and then
felt much at a loss as to what should be next done.
"While I was busied in reflection, my eyes fell on a narrow ledge in the
eastern face of the rock, perhaps a yard below the summit upon which I
stood. This ledge projected about eighteen inches, and was not more than
a foot wide, while a niche in the cliff just above it gave it a rude
resemblance to one of the hollow-backed chairs used by our ancestors. I
made no doubt that here was the 'devil's seat' alluded to in the MS.,
and now I seemed to grasp the full secret of the riddle.
"The 'good glass,' I knew, could have reference to nothing but a
telescope; for the word 'glass' is rarely employed in any other sense by
seamen. Now here, I at once saw, was a telescope to be used, and a
definite point of view, _admitting no variation_, from which to use it.
Nor did I hesitate to believe that the phrases 'twenty-one degrees and
thirteen minutes,' and 'northeast and by north,' were intended as
directions for the levelling of the glass. Greatly excited by these
discoveries, I hurried home, procured a telescope, and returned to the
rock.
"I let myself down to the ledge, and found that it was impossible to
retain a seat on it unless in one particular position. This fact
confirmed my preconceived idea. I proceeded to use the glass. Of course,
the 'twenty-one degrees and thirteen minutes' could allude to nothing
but elevation above the visible horizon, since the horizontal direction
was clearly indicated by the words, 'northeast and by north.' This
latter direction I at once established by means of a pocket-compass;
then, pointing the glass as nearly at an angle of twenty-one degrees of
elevation as I could do it by guess, I moved it cautiously up or down,
until my attention was arrested by a circular rift or opening in the
foliage of a large tree that overtopped its fellows in the distance. In
the centre of this rift I perceived a white spot, but could not, at
first, distinguish what it was. Adjusting the focus of the telescope, I
again looked, and now made it out to be a human skull.
"On this discovery I was so sanguine as to consider the enigma solved;
for the phrase 'main branch, seventh limb, east side,' could refer only
to the position of the skull on the tree, while 'shoot from the left eye
of the death's-head' admitted, also, of but one interpretation, in
regard to a search for buried treasure. I perceived that the design was
to drop a bullet from the left eye of the skull, and that a bee-line, or
in other words, a straight line, drawn from the nearest point of the
trunk through 'the shot' (or the spot where the bullet fell), and thence
extended to a distance of fifty feet, would indicate a definite
point--and beneath this point I thought it at least _possible_ that a
deposit of value lay concealed."
"All this," I said, "is exceedingly clear, and, although ingenious,
still simple and explicit. When you left the Bishop's Hotel, what then?"
"Why, having carefully taken the bearings of the tree, I turned
homewards. The instant that I left 'the devil's seat,' however, the
circular rift vanished; nor could I get a glimpse of it afterwards, turn
as I would. What seems to me the chief ingenuity in this whole business,
is the fact (for repeated experiment has convinced me it _is_ a fact)
that the circular opening in question is visible from no other
attainable point of view than that afforded by the narrow ledge on the
face of the rock.
"In this expedition to the 'Bishop's Hotel' I had been attended by
Jupiter, who had no doubt observed, for some weeks past, the abstraction
of my demeanor, and took especial care not to leave me alone. But on the
next day, getting up very early, I contrived to give him the slip, and
went into the hills in search of the tree. After much toil I found it.
When I came home at night my valet proposed to give me a flogging. With
the rest of the adventure I believe you are as well acquainted as
myself."
"I suppose," said I, "you missed the spot, in the first attempt at
digging, through Jupiter's stupidity in letting the bug fall through the
right instead of through the left eye of the skull."
"Precisely. This mistake made a difference of about two inches and a
half in the 'shot'--that is to say, in the position of the peg nearest
the tree; and had the treasure been _beneath_ the 'shot' the error would
have been of little moment; but the 'shot,' together with the nearest
point of the tree, were merely two points for the establishment of a
line of direction; of course the error, however trivial in the
beginning, increased as we proceeded with the line, and, by the time we
had gone fifty feet, threw us quite off the scent. But for my
deep-seated convictions that treasure was here somewhere actually
buried, we might have had all our labor in vain."
"I presume the fancy of _the skull_--of letting fall a bullet through
the skull's eye--was suggested to Kidd by the piratical flag. No doubt
he felt a kind of poetical consistency in recovering his money through
this ominous insignium."
"Perhaps so; still, I cannot help thinking that common-sense had quite
as much to do with the matter as poetical consistency. To be visible
from the Devil's seat, it was necessary that the object, if small,
should be _white_; and there is nothing like your human skull for
retaining and even increasing its whiteness under exposure to all
vicissitudes of weather."
"But your grandiloquence, and your conduct in swinging the beetle--how
excessively odd! I was sure you were mad. And why did you insist on
letting fall the bug, instead of a bullet, from the skull?"
"Why, to be frank, I felt somewhat annoyed by your evident suspicions
touching my sanity, and so resolved to punish you quietly, in my own
way, by a little bit of sober mystification. For this reason I swung the
beetle, and for this reason I let it fall from the tree. An observation
of yours about its great weight suggested the latter idea."
"Yes, I perceive; and now there is only one point which puzzles me. What
are we to make of the skeletons found in the hole?"
"That is a question I am no more able to answer than yourself. There
seems, however, only one plausible way of accounting for them--and yet
it is dreadful to believe in such atrocity as my suggestion would imply.
It is clear that Kidd--if Kidd indeed secreted this treasure, which I
doubt not--it is clear that he must have had assistance in the labor.
But, the worst of this labor concluded, he may have thought it expedient
to remove all participants in his secret. Perhaps a couple of blows with
a mattock were sufficient, while his coadjutors were busy in the pit;
perhaps it required a dozen--who shall tell?"
V. A CHRISTMAS CAROL (1843)
BY CHARLES DICKENS (1812-1870)
[_Setting_. In this most famous of Christmas stories Dickens gives us
the very atmosphere of the season with all the contrasts that poverty
and wealth, miserliness and charity, the past and the future can
suggest. Though he had London in mind, any great industrial center would
have served as well, for Dickens was thinking primarily of the relations
between employer and employee. That Christmas is better kept in England
now than when Dickens wrote is a triumph due more to "A Christmas Carol"
than to any other one piece of prose or verse.
_Plot_. The story was planned rather than plotted. By calling it a carol
and dividing it into staves, Dickens would have us think of it not as a
narrative but as a song, full of the joy and good will that Christmas
ought to diffuse. It is a rill from the fountain of the first great
Christmas chant, "On earth peace, good will toward men." The theme is
not so much the duty of service as the joy of service, the happiness
that we feel in making others happy; and the four carols mark the four
stages in the conversion of Scrooge from solitary selfishness to social
good will. The plan is simple but it is suffused with a love and
sympathy that no one but Dickens or O. Henry could have given it. If
"The Gold-Bug" is a triumph of the analytic intellect, this story is a
triumph of the social impulses that make the world better. "It seems to
me," said Thackeray, "a national benefit, and to every man and woman who
reads it a personal kindness." While writing it Dickens said: "I wept
and laughed and wept again." And yet the psychology of the plot is as
soundly intellectual as the style is emotional. Dickens knew that a
flint-hearted man like Scrooge could not be changed by forces brought to
bear from without. The appeal must come from within. He must himself see
his past, his present, and his probable future, but in a new light and
from a wider angle of vision. The dream is only a means to this end. A
man moves to a higher realm of thought and action not by learning new
truths but by seeing the old truths differently related.
_Characters_. Scrooge is, of course, the central character. He is also a
perfect example of the changing character as contrasted with the
stationary character. In fact all the other characters remain
essentially the same, while Scrooge, who at the beginning is unfriendly
and friendless, becomes at the end "as good a friend, as good a master,
and as good a man as the good old city knew, or any other good old city,
town, or borough in the good old world." It is difficult to create any
kind of character, whether stationary or changing, but the latter is the
more difficult. Both demand rare powers of observation and
interpretation, but the ascending or descending character demands a
knowledge of the chemistry of conduct that only the masters have.
The Cratchits must not be overlooked. Tiny Tim's "God bless us every
one" has at least become the symbol of Christmas benevolence wherever
Christmas is celebrated in English-speaking lands.]
STAVE ONE
MARLEY'S GHOST
Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that.
The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the
undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge's name
was good upon 'Change for anything he chose to put his hand to.
Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.
Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise?
Scrooge and he were partners for I don't know how many years. Scrooge
was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole
residuary legatee, his sole friend, his sole mourner.
Scrooge never painted out old Marley's name, however. There it yet
stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse door,--Scrooge and Marley.
The firm was known as Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the
business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley. He answered to
both names. It was all the same to him.
Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, was Scrooge! a
squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old
sinner! External heat and cold had little influence on him. No warmth
could warm, no cold could chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than
he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain
less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't know where to have him. The
heaviest rain and snow and hail and sleet could boast of the advantage
over him in only one respect,--they often "came down" handsomely, and
Scrooge never did.
Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, "My
dear Scrooge, how are you? When will you come to see me?" No beggars
implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was
o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to
such and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blind men's dogs appeared to
know him; and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into
doorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails as though they
said: "No eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!"
But what did Scrooge care! It was the very thing he liked. To edge his
way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep
its distance, was what the knowing ones call "nuts" to Scrooge.
Once upon a time--of all the good days in the year, upon a Christmas
eve--old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house. It was cold, bleak,
biting, foggy weather; and the city clocks had only just gone three, but
it was quite dark already.
The door of Scrooge's counting-house was open, that he might keep his
eye upon his clerk, who, in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank,
was copying letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk's fire
was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldn't
replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room; and so
surely as the clerk came in with the shovel the master predicted that it
would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore the clerk put on his
white comforter, and tried to warm himself at the candle; in which
effort, not being a man of a strong imagination, he failed.
"A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!" cried a cheerful voice. It was
the voice of Scrooge's nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this
was the first intimation Scrooge had of his approach.
"Bah!" said Scrooge; "humbug!"
"Christmas a humbug, uncle! You don't mean that, I am sure?"
"I do. Out upon merry Christmas! What's Christmas time to you but a time
for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year
older, and not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and
having every item in 'em through a round dozen of months presented dead
against you? If I had my will, every idiot who goes about with 'Merry
Christmas' on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried
with a stake of holly through his heart! He should!"
"Uncle!"
"Nephew, keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine."
"Keep it! But you don't keep it."
"Let me leave it alone, then. Much good may it do you! Much good it has
ever done you!"
"There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I
have not profited, I dare say, Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I
have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round,--apart
from the veneration due to its sacred origin, if anything belonging to
it _can_ be apart from that,--as a good time; a kind, forgiving,
charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar
of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their
shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they
really were fellow-travellers to the grave, and not another race of
creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has
never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it
_has_ done me good, and _will_ do me good; and I say, God bless it!"
The clerk in the tank involuntarily applauded.
"Let me hear another sound from _you_" said Scrooge, "and you'll keep
your Christmas by losing your situation!--You're quite a powerful
speaker, sir," he added, turning to his nephew, "I wonder you don't go
into Parliament."
"Don't be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us, to-morrow."
Scrooge said that he would see him--yes, indeed he did. He went the
whole length of the expression, and said that he would see him in that
extremity first.