d
made an occasional entry as he pursued his thoughts. Mark read
newspapers and presently handed a page to Mr. Ganns.

"What you said about acrostics interested me," he began. "Here's one
and I've been trying to guess it for an hour. No doubt it ought to
be easy; but I expect there's a catch. Wonder if it will puzzle
you."

Peter smiled and dropped his notebook.

"Acrostics are a habit of mind," he said. "You grow to think
acrostically and be up to all the tricks of the trade. You soon get
wise to the way that people think who make them; and then you'll
find they all think alike and all try to hoodwink you along the same
lines. If you tempt me on to acrostics, you'll soon wish you had
not."

Mark pointed to the puzzle.

"Try that," he said. "I can't make head or tail of it; yet I dare
say you'll thrash it out if you've got the acrostic mind."

Mr. Ganns cast his eye over the puzzle. It ran thus:

When to the North you go,
The folk shall greet you so.
. . . . . . . . .

1. Upright and light and Source of Light
2. And Source of Light, reversed, are plain.
3. A term of scorn comes into sight
And Source of Light, reversed again.

The American regarded the problem for a minute in silence, then
smiled and handed the paper back to Brendon.

"Quite neat, in its little conventional way," he said. "It's on the
regular English pattern. Our acrostics are a trifle smarter, but all
run into one form. The great acrostic writer isn't born. If
acrostics were as big a thing as chess, then we should have masters
who would produce masterpieces."

"But this one--d'you see it?"

"Milk for babes, Mark."

Mr. Ganns turned to his notebook, wrote swiftly into it, tore out
the page, and handed the solution to his companion.

Brendon read:

G O D
Omega Alph A
D O G

"If you know Knut Hamsun's stories, then you guess it instantly. If
not, you might possibly be bothered," he said, while Brendon stared.

"There are two ways with acrostics," continued Peter, full of
animation, "the first is to make lights so difficult that they turn
your hair grey till you've got them, the second--just traps--perhaps
three perfectly sound answers to the same light, but the second just
a shade sounder than the first, and the third a shade sounder than
either of the others."

"Who makes