'I'm one, too,' he said; '--at least Churchton, forty years--at least
Churchton, thirty years ago, was not all it is to-day. It has always had
its own special tone, of course; but in my young--in my younger days it was
just a large country village. Fewer of us went into town to make money, or
to spend it.'...

"And then he asked me to go into town, one evening soon, and help him spend
some. He suggested it rather shyly; _a tatons_, I will say--though
French is not my business. He offered a dinner at a restaurant, and the
theatre afterwards. Did I accept? Indeed I did. Think, Arthur! after all
the movies and restaurants round the elms and the fountain (tho' you don't
know them yet)! I will say, too, that his cigarettes were rather better
than my own....

"I suppose he is fully fifty; but he has his young days, I can see.
Certainly his age doesn't obtrude,--doesn't bother me at all, though he
sometimes seems conscious of it himself. He wears eye-glasses part of the
time,--for dignity, I presume. He had them on when I came in, but they
disappeared almost at once, and I saw them no more.

"He asked me about my degree,--though I didn't remember having spoken of
it. I couldn't but mention 'Shakespeare'--as the word goes; and you know
that when I mention him, it always makes the other man mention Bacon. He
did mention Bacon, and smiled. 'I've studied the cipher,' he said. 'All you
need to make it go is a pair of texts--a long one and a short one--and two
fonts of type, or their equivalent in penmanship. Two colors of ink, for
example. You can put anything into anything. See here.' He reached up to a
shelf and brought down a thin brown square note-book. 'Here's the
alphabet,' he said; 'and here'--opening a little beyond--'is my use of it:
one of my earliest exercises. I have put the first stanza of "Annabel Lee"