Norwich bulletin., 1913-07-29
CUPID'S CIPHER.


1 And this is real cipher?'' asked I Jessie Ludlam.
 You could run an entire conspiracy on that very machine declared Frank Keeler, cycling the typewriter.
 How does it work ?' she demanded, all excitement.
 Its very easy,' he explained, If you know how. You see, I hit the "a and 1t prints D. If hit the a it prints 'a'.
 "Yes, I see that she cried. ''but how do I use it?'
 "Suppose. he explained. you get a letter from me that reads, ''Vokk ngz ug zg git zitquzst,' you take it to your machine and write 1t off. Now, what do you have?"
 Jessie clicked the keys for moment and lifted the carriage with cry. II says. "Will you go to the theatre with wrong
 Exactly" he agreed. and have the same sort of a machine, so that when I write a letter it comes out in cipher; but when I copy your letters they come out in English.
 Its going to be such fun." laughed Jessie. T shall have to write you ev- cry day"
 Frank smiled. Jessie must be singu- larlN lacking in shrewdness if she sup posed that he had had the typewriter machines changed for any other req son than that he knew that it would induce her to write every day.
 In some odd fashion Jessie had be- come absorbed in the study of ciphers and codes. She made hobby of the fad. and Frank was quick to see the advantage it gave him.
 He was not altogether welcome at the Ludlam house, his father and Jes- sie's had been old business enemies,
 r.s-, .,,A1 letter was the next best thing. A typewriter in which she only had to write the words as they came to her to have them turned out in cipher was an attraction not to be lightly regard ed, and Keeler had reason to congrat- ulate himself upon his shrewdness, when every day five or six page letters came to him-an odd tumble of char acters which needed only copying upon his duplicate machine to be rendered into English.
 There were no loving messages, just a girls chat, for Frank had not yet made his hoped-for strike in Wall street, and had not spoken. But even the commonplace recital of the incl dentals of her daily life pleased him, and if his letters gradually assumed a warmer tone, he could not be blamed.
 The novelty of the correspondence kept it alive even when Crank began to grow interested in the railroad mar ket.
 Several small roads were about to be merged into one larger company. Each in it's separate existence did not amount to much. AS a trunk line the combination would be important.
 In a whisper had come to him of the merger, but he was alive to the importance of the movement and he knew that could he only foresee which of the feeder lines were to be taken into combination and which were to be left outside he would be able, with very little risk, to make his fortune from the market
 John Ludlam was behind the move ment somewhere, and were he so in clined he could put thousands of dol lars Franks way. Instead, he. had more than once sought to lead Frank wrong, even sending his confidential man with small commissions in the hope that Frank would suppose that he had inside information, and so act up- on it himself.
 The first time Frank had argued with himself that it was wrong to profit by this information, since it was not his own, but clients and after ward he had been glad he had done so because the market would have gone against him. This had shown him the trap.
 It was for this reason that he was particularly careful when Job Cole came into his office Trifh an orda,. to