Heffelbauer was an institution. He was half janitor, half handy-man about the office, and half watchman -- thus becoming the peer of thirteen and one-half tailors.
Sent for, he came, radiating his nationality. 'Heffelbauer,' said the m. e., 'did you ever hear of a code belonging to the office a long time ago - a private code? You know what a code is, don't you?'
'Yah,' said Heffelbauer. 'Sure I know vat a code is. Yah, apout dwelf or fifteen year ago der office had a code. Der reborters in der city-room haf it here.'
'Ah!' said the m. e. 'We're getting on the trail now. Where was it kept, Heffelbauer? What do you know about it?'
'Somedimes,' said the retainer, 'dey keep it in der little room behind der library room.'
'Can you find it asked the m. e. eagerly. 'Do you know where it is?'
'Mein Gott!' said Heffelbauer. 'How long you dink a code live? Der reborters call him a maskeet. But von day he butt mit his head der editor, und -- '
'Oh, he's talking about a goat,' said Boyd. 'Get out, Heffelbauer.'
Again discomfited, the concerted wit and resource of the Enterprise huddled around Calloway's puzzle, con- sidering its mysterious words in vain.
Then Vesey came in.
Vesey was the youngest reporter. He had a thirty- two-inch chest and wore a number fourteen collar; but his bright Scotch plaid suit gave him presence and con- ferred no obscurity upon his whereabouts. He wore his hat in such a position that people followed him about to see him take it off, convinced that it must be hung upon a peg driven into the back of his head. He was never without an immense, knotted, hard-wood cane with a German- silver tip on its crooked handle. Vesey was the best photograph hustler in the office. Scott said it was because no living human being could resist the per- sonal triumph it was to hand his picture over to Vesey. Vesey always wrote his own news stories, except the big ones, which were sent to the rewrite men. Add to this fact that among all the inhabitants, temples, and groves of the earth nothing existed that could abash Vesey, and his dim sketch is concluded.
Vesey butted into the circle of cipher readers very much as Heffelbauer's 'code' would have done, and asked what was up. Some one explained, with the touch of half-familiar condescension that they always used toward him. Vesey reached out and took the cablegram from the m. e.'s hand. Under the protection of some special Providence, he was always doing appalling things like that, and coming, off unscathed.
'It's a code,' said Vesey. 'Anybody got the key?'
'The office has no code,' said Boyd, reaching for the message. Vesey held to it.
'Then old Callowav expects us to read it, anyhow,' said he. 'He's up a tree, or something, and he's made this up so as to get it by, the censor. It's up to us. Gee! I wish they had sell, me, too. Say -- we can't afford to fall down on our end of it. 'Foregone, preconcerted rash, witching' -- h'm.'
Vesey sat down on a table corner and began to whistle softly, frowning at the cablegram.
'Let's have it, please,' said the m. e. 'We've got to get to work on it.'
'I believe I've got a line on it,' said Vesey. 'Give me ten minutes.'
He walked to his desk, threw his hat into a waste-basket, spread out flat on his chest like a gorgeous lizard, and started his pencil going. The wit and wisdom of the Enterprise remained in a loose group, and smiled at one another, nodding their heads toward Vesey. Then they began to exchange their theories about the cipher.
It took Vesey exactly fifteen minutes. He brought to the m. e. a pad with the code-key written on it.
'I felt the swing of it as soon as I saw it,' said Vesey. 'Hurrah for old Calloway! He's done the Japs and every paper in town that prints literature instead of news. Take a look at that.'
Thus had Vesey set forth the reading of the code:
Foregone - conclusion
Preconcerted - arrangement
Rash - act
Witching - hour of midnight
Goes - without saying
Muffled - report
Rumour - hath it
Mine - host
Dark - horse
Silent - majority
Unfortunate - pedestrians*
Richmond - in the field
Existing - conditions
Great - White Way
Hotly - contested
Brute - force
Select - few
Mooted - question
Parlous - times
Beggars - description
Ye - correspondent
Angel - unawares
Incontrovertible - fact
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*Mr. Vesey afterward explained that the logical journalistic complement of the word 'unfortunate' was once the word 'victim.' But, since the automobile became so popular, the correct following word is now pedestrians. Of course, in Calloway's code it meant infantry.
'It's simply newspaper English,' explained Vesey. 'I've been reporting on the Enterprise long enough to know it by heart. Old Calloway gives us the cue word, and we use the word that naturally follows it just as we em in the paper. Read it over, and you'll see how pat they drop into their places. Now, here's the message he intended us to get.'
