change of tone. 'That's what I'd forgotten. Where's that bit of
paper? Give it me back.'

I, too, had forgotten that cryptic screed. I found it fallen on the
floor, and handed it to him.

He smoothed it out, nodding and smiling at me disagreeably. 'I found
myself glancing through Nupton's book,' he resumed. 'Not very easy
reading. Some sort of phonetic spelling.... All the modern books I saw
were phonetic.'

'Then I don't want to hear any more, Soames, please.'

'The proper names seemed all to be spelt in the old way. But for that, I
mightn't have noticed my own name.'

'Your own name? Really? Soames, I'm VERY glad.'

'And yours.'

'No!'

'I thought I should find you waiting here to-night. So I took the
trouble to copy out the passage. Read it.'

I snatched the paper. Soames' handwriting was characteristically dim.
It, and the noisome spelling, and my excitement, made me all the slower
to grasp what T. K. Nupton was driving at.

The document lies before me at this moment. Strange that the words
I here copy out for you were copied out for me by poor Soames just
seventy-eight years hence....

From p. 234 of 'Inglish Littracher 1890-1900' bi T. K. Nupton, publishd
bi th Stait, 1992:

'Fr egzarmpl, a riter ov th time, naimd Max Beerbohm, hoo woz stil alive
in th twentieth senchri, rote a stauri in wich e pautraid an immajnari
karrakter kauld "Enoch Soames"--a thurd-rait poit hoo beleevz imself
a grate jeneus an maix a bargin with th Devvl in auder ter no wot
posterriti thinx ov im! It iz a sumwot labud sattire but not without
vallu az showing hou seriusli the yung men ov th aiteen-ninetiz took
themselvz. Nou that the littreri profeshn haz bin auganized az a
departmnt of publik servis, our riters hav found their levvl an hav
lernt ter doo their duti without thort ov th morro. "Th laibrer iz
werthi ov hiz hire," an that iz aul. Thank hevvn we hav no Enoch
Soameses amung us to-dai!'

I found that by murmuring the words aloud (a device which I commend to
my reader) I was able to master them, little by little. The clearer they
became, the greater was my bewilderment, my distress and horror. The
whole thing was a nightmare. Afar, the great grisly background of what
was in store for the poor dear art of letters; here, at the table,
fixing on me a gaze that made me hot all over, the poor fellow
whom--whom evidently... but no: whatever down-grade my character might
take in coming years, I should never be such a