This was nonsense; the fact that most of the letters were consonants,
and the one that most frequently occurred, Q, showed that he was on the
wrong tack. He must try again. He was sure the long dashes represented
the intervals between the words; what did the numbers stand for?
"I wonder what letter is most often used?" he thought. He wrote down
the first thing that occurred to him, the first line of the song, _Heart
of Oak_--
"Come, cheer up, my lads, 'tis to glory we steer."
"'Tis E!" he said to himself. "It occurs in four words out of ten. Now
there are three words in the stuff that have 3 and 2 in them; depend
upon it either 3 or 2 stands for E. Which is it? Why, E is the second
vowel, and I is the third. Every word has one or two vowels in it, and
two of these words have I in them. Perhaps the five vowels are numbered
1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Let's try that."