Chapter 24

Elizabeth outRue ConstantineVery thin glovesWay Susan dart.

This was evidently some excellent moral precept, but it hung on its frame, a mere puzzle on the school-room wall, until an expert word juggler came that way, and solved the mystery by reading it offthus:—

“Eliza be thou true, constant in everything. Love sways us, and art.”

In the following lines the first missing word has two letters, and the letters are carried on, with one more added each time, and in varied order, throughout the verses, either in single words or in groups ofwords:—

A lover of .. unkind fairWere less than ... did he not ....“Mine is no ..... life, I swear,It dwells in this ...... alone.Grant me thy love, like ....... chaste.. ...... lest thou live unwooed,..... .. . lowly life to wasteThe treasures of sweet ..........”

Solution

Ingenious cryptic efforts have been made to prove that Bacon was the author of Shakespeare’s plays, but it has been reserved for us to reveal, by a convincing cryptogram, the modern wearer of his mantle.

The secret is disclosed by a line of capital letters shownbelow:—

Till a man is as ——— of a ——— as his palm is,We ——— him from earning his ——— in our armies.

The missing words are spelt with the same five letters.

Solution

Pale penury that ——— social bands,And any link that ——— worth to fame,Take ye the blame for my inactive hands,I ——— in vain to build upon the sands,Without a ——— who can make a name?

The missing words are spelt with the same six letters.

Solution

The following example of the use of phonetic capitals and figures is fresh and original. It contains more than eighty such symbols in its twenty-fourlines:—

A MAID OF ARCADY

A rosy maid of R K DIs L N in her bower;Brisk as U C A honey B,And sweet as N E flower.Does she S A herself 2 please(XQQ the saucy miss),She sings an L E G 2 TT,Or blows an M T kiss.“B mine, I say, U bonny J,B 4 I CC mine L;When you are gay my hopes D K,In T sing U X L.”Without ado she takes the Q,Her II B 9 and B D,“O, sir, I do not N V UI C that U R C D.“X S of spirits—O D V—Begins 2 U U U up;The cure must B a dish of TWith K N in the cup!”“O L N U I C R true,Y need I C Q less?I’ll never D V 8 from U,But end my cares with S.”(caress).

A rosy maid of R K DIs L N in her bower;Brisk as U C A honey B,And sweet as N E flower.

Does she S A herself 2 please(XQQ the saucy miss),She sings an L E G 2 TT,Or blows an M T kiss.

“B mine, I say, U bonny J,B 4 I CC mine L;When you are gay my hopes D K,In T sing U X L.”

Without ado she takes the Q,Her II B 9 and B D,“O, sir, I do not N V UI C that U R C D.

“X S of spirits—O D V—Begins 2 U U U up;The cure must B a dish of TWith K N in the cup!”

“O L N U I C R true,Y need I C Q less?I’ll never D V 8 from U,But end my cares with S.”(caress).

Mr Backslide, afflicted with weakness of mind,———— over to Lushington’s inn, where he dined.He ———— the pledge he had taken as handy,And emptied forthwith a ———— of brandy.

Each missing word has eight letters.

Solution

A ——— sat in his ——— grey,Watching the moonbeams ——— playOn a keg that in the bushes lay,And these were the words of his song:—“Thou ——— the weak, thou ——— the strong,To thee the ——— of bad deeds doth belong.”And the leaves with a ——— took up the sad song.

Each of these missing words is spelt with the same six letters.

Solution

Three hungry scholars came to a wayside inn, and saw this sign over the door:

PLACET ORESTAT ORDINEORE STABITORE AT ABIT

One of them eager to show his ready wit, translated these Latin words of welcome roughly into Englishverse:—

“Good cheer we provide,Our service is sure;Their savours abideThough meats don’t endure!”

The complacent smile faded from his face as a village schoolboy, who had overheard him, broke in with the real rendering of the words:—“Place to rest at or dine; O rest a bit, or eat a bit!”

In these lines, where the dots occur, insert words, each of which is longer by one letter than the one before, and so complete the poem. The same letters are carried on each time in variedarrangement:—

Nature . love .. every land,On burning plain, by wooded rill;Where ... is girt by coral strand,Or .... rears her castled hill.Then ..... from me the tale to hear,How, true to one ......, the beeOnce ....... out keeps, year by year,The ........ by her instinct given,Which teach her, wheresoe’er she roam,In every clime beneath the heaven,To build the same ......... home.

Nature . love .. every land,On burning plain, by wooded rill;Where ... is girt by coral strand,Or .... rears her castled hill.

Then ..... from me the tale to hear,How, true to one ......, the beeOnce ....... out keeps, year by year,The ........ by her instinct given,Which teach her, wheresoe’er she roam,In every clime beneath the heaven,To build the same ......... home.

Solution

A schoolmaster in the Midlands, who was a bit of a wag, wrote this on the blackboard, as a novel exercise for the boys of Standard VI. Can you decipher it?

Solution

Here is another ingenious specimen of missing words, spelt each of them with the same fiveletters:—

That Samson did a thousand ———Is not so wondrous strange.In days like these at ——— such featsAssume a wider range.The Press ——— news ——— now,Enough to scare a sinner,And any fool who chooses may,In Samson’s way, his thousands slayWho chews his ——— at dinner.

Solution

(On an Old Pie Woman)

BENE AT hint HEDU S.T.T.H. emo Uldy OL.D.C. RUSTO F.N.E. L.L.B.AC. hel orl AT ElyW ASS hove N.W. how ASS Kill’dInt heart SOF pi escu StarD. sand Tart Sand K N ewe,Ver yus E oft he ove N.W. Hens he’Dliv’ Dlon genoUG H.S. hem Ade he R la STP uffapUF FBY HE RHUS. B an D. M.Uchp R.A. is ’D no Wheres He dotH.L. i.e. TOM a Kead I.R.T.P. Iein hop estHat he R.C. Rust W IL.L.B. ERA IS ’D——!

Solution

All his flock from ——— rough,To the ——— ran apace,Where their ———, old and tough,———, the guardian of his race.

In these lines each missing word is spelt with the same six letters.

Solution

This is a bright little specimen of a missing wordspuzzle:—

Come, landlord, fill the flowing ——Until their —— run over;For in this —— to-night I’ll ——,To-morrow —— to Dover!

Each missing word has the same four letters.

Solution

An old worn stone, with the inscription given below just legible, was found near to some ancient Roman remains, and was the valued possession of a local antiquarian, who was convinced that it dated back to the days of the EmperorClaudius:—

BENEAT . HTH . IS . STONERE . POS . ETH . CLAUD . COS. TERTR . I . PES . ELLE . ROF . IMPIN . G . TONAS . DOTH . HISCON . SORTJA . N . E

His pride of possession was, however, shattered when a rival collector read it off into excellent English:—“Beneath this stone reposeth Claud Coster, tripe seller, of Impington, as doth his consort Jane.”

Here, as quite a novelty, is a double-barrelled missing words puzzle. As a puzzle, Part I. should stand alone, but the second part forms a thinly-veiled solution, which throws light upon the missing words. These are four in number and are spelt differently with the same six letters.

Part I

I tell of voices hushed and still,I bid men prick their ears,I help an army’s ranks to fill,My gleam like gold appears.

Part II

Hushed is the still and ——— voice,Pricked ears are keen to ———,Men who ——— make noble choice.——— like gold will glisten.

Solution

This is a singularly perfect specimen of a seven-letter Word Square.

Some men their ——— escorted on their way,When “——— look here!” I heard a driver say:“It ——— our pluck to toil like ——— all day,When wanting ——— we starve on wretched pay.”

Each missing word is spelt with the same five letters.

Solution

Can you disentangle the eight-line verse which is scattered over these 64 squares? You must leap always from square to square, as a knight moves on the chess-board.

The verses begin with “Better to die,” and end with “tle” in the top left-hand corner.

Solution

As a ———— ———— of facts you’ll findOur Encyclopedia ———— the mind.

The three missing words are spelt with the same seven letters.

Solution

You drink that ———, ——— wine, too lavishly at night,And say a ——— or a swim next morning puts you right,When night brings you a sudden ———, and morning devils blue,Then you’ll ——— your careless boast, and own my warning true.

Each missing word is spelt with the same six letters.

Solution

Can you complete this broken Word Square?

Solution

The missing words in these lines are all spelt with the same sixletters:—

— ——— but for rebel actWithout — ——— should be;But this — — — end, in factNone find — ——— in me.

Solution

“Oh for a ——— in this vast solitude,This endless rise and fall of ——— and moor!”Soliloquised a ——— in sad mood,As through the lonely hills the staff of life he bore.

Spelt with the same five letters.

Solution

If the letters on these squares are taken in proper sequence they will form the words of a well-knownproverb:—

When a starting point has been chosen for trial of this puzzle, the successive letters must occupy the squares which in every case are reached by a knight’s move at chess, until a popular proverb is formed.

Solution

’Twas in ........ that we saw him playLike a ........ in his sports, and theyAmuse us as a good ........ may.

Each missing word has the same eight letters.

Solution

The following curiosity, which is known asGuarini’s Problem, dates back to the year 1512. On a board of 9 squares two white Knights are placed in the top corners, and two black Knights in the bottom corners,thus:—

Chess board

The problem is to interchange, in as few moves as possible, the positions of the white and black knights.

Solution

We call particular attention to the construction of this very curious couplet, in which the spaces are filled by the same seven letters. In every case four of the letters of the missing words or phrases are the same, and keep the same order, and in all but the first the order of the letters is unchanged throughout, though the meaning always alters, as it does in that most perfect old Latin motto, “Persevera, per severa, per se vera,” “persevere through trials, true to thyself.”

Soup is —— ——— for a ———— divine,Who with —— ——— is —— —— to sit down and dine.

Solution

Can you break up and recast the five words in this square, so that the fresh words form a perfect Word Square? The initials are A, M, E, N, D, S.

Solution

Sweet as the —— and cruel as its thorn,—— thy power is great, thy pity scorn.Swift as the —— that through the forest fly,Deep as the —— that deepest hidden lie,Is thine own —— to hapless mortals given,Semblance of darkest hell or brightest heaven.

These missing words are spelt with the same four letters.

Solution

Good ——— for City ———

My pipe ——— for — —— charms, that yieldPictures and ——— of a children’s day.Lest conscience ——— I —— — down to sayMy ——— shall send some city ——— afield.

Each word or group is spelt with the same five letters.

Solution

Quite as cryptic and convincing as any of the curious Shakespeare-Bacon cyphers is the evidence which connects our great English poet with the forty-sixth Psalm of the authorised Bible version.

Shakespear, spelt thus, as it often was, contains four vowels and six consonants. This is the key to the position. If, guided by these figures, we turn to theforty-sixthPsalm and count from the beginning, we find theforty-sixthword is “Shake.”

Then, counting from the end, disregarding the “Selah,” which is no part of the text, we find that theforty-sixthword is “spear.”

Thus, by a startling and perfect succession of affinities, the poet’s name-number is linked again and again with this Psalm, until it reveals his name.

If any sceptic asks why the Book of Psalms should thus be turned to, the answer comes in the curious fact that the actual letters of the name William Shakespere, another of its different spellings, form this sentence as their anagram, and thus afford the necessaryclue:—

“We are like his Psalm.”

A final point of interest is made when we notice that Shakespeare himself must have been justforty-sixyears old when the Psalms were re-translated.

He said “You ———” when one lied,He said “Don’t ———” when one hied,His glass held ——— at his side,He can ——— what he denied.

Each missing word is spelt with the same six letters.

Solution

The letters on this board, if read aright in the order of a Knight’s moves at chess, will give a popular proverb.

Start from the most central E, and you will be able to trace the proverb.

Solution

Mr Snip, the ————, was ———— a hill,With a bag of new ———— for stock;When a runaway motor-car gave him a spillWhich scattered his doubts with the shock.

Each missing word is spelt with the same eight letters.

Solution

The pupils of Dr Puzzlewitz found one morning these vowels printed boldly on theblackboard:—

Under it the doctor had written “Fill in the consonants, so that the words read alike from top to bottom, and from side to side.” How is this to be done?

Solution

——— her fair cheek, and back o’er allThe ——— of years ——— memory.Those wedding ——— to her recallThe ——— he urged so tenderly.

Each of these missing words has five letters.

Solution

Two burglars attempted to ——— a house,The ——— was heard, though as still as a mouse.When challenged at once he a ——— became,But caught as a ——— he finished his game.

Each word has the same five letters.

Solution

The squarest word in any language is the Latintime, which, in connection with the three other Latin words,item,meti,emit, can be read, when written as a square, in every possible direction.Thus:—

As it seems impossible to go one better, we have been seeking, as a new nut for our store, some English word which may be a good second. Can you complete the square which is built up on these lines?

Delf is the key word, but it so far falls short of the perfection aimed at, that other letters are used in four of the vacant places. Still, it is so constructed that words which begin with D, E, L, or F appear each of them in four different directions, and is thus quite a notable example.

Solution

Can you fill in this diamond with four words that read alike from left to right, and from top to bottom?

Solution

The ———— fool in olden daysGave kings advice in jesting phrase;He’s ———— now; the modern throne———— all follies but its own.

Each missing word is spelt with the same eight letters.

Solution

Days of ——— and times of evil,Starving girls with ——— do toil,No man ——— feast or revel,Hushed is ——— and turmoil.

Each missing word contains the same six letters.

Solution

Who ———— in his pride and rage,To ———— vice a prey,May hope to reach a green old age,And find ———— his stay.

Each word has the same seven letters.

Solution

The places now occupied by dots are to be filled in with letters so that a complete diamond is formed, of words that read alike from left to right, and from top to bottom.

Solution

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