contrary statement to Yoletta; and now here is the book, and you confess
that you cannot read it."

"But that is easily explained," said I, immensely relieved, for I
certainly had felt a little guilty about the hand-squeezing performance,
although it was not a very serious matter. "I can read the books of my
own country, and naturally concluded that your books were written in the
same kind of letters; but last evening I discovered that it was not so.
You have already seen the letters of my country on the coins I showed
you last evening."

And here I again pulled out my pocket-book, and emptied the contents on
the table.

He began to pick up the sovereigns one by one to examine them.
Meanwhile, finding my beautiful black and gold stylograph pen inserted
in the book, I thought I could not do better than to show him how I
wrote. Fortunately, the fluid in it had not become dry. Tearing a blank
page from my book I hastily scribbled a few lines, and handed the paper
to him, saying: "This is how I write."

He began studying the paper, but his eyes, I perceived, wandered often
to the stylograph pen in my hand.

Presently he remarked: "This writing, or these marks you have made on
the paper, are not the same as the letters on the gold."

I took the paper and proceeded to copy the sentence I had written, but
in printing letters, beneath it, then returned it to him.