"
"You mean to punctuate it?"
"Something of that kind."
"But how was it possible to effect this?"
"I reflected that it had been a _point_ with the writer to run his
words together without divisions, so as to increase the difficulty of
solution. Now, a not over acute man, in pursuing such, an object,
would be nearly certain to overdo the matter. When, in the course of
his composition, he arrived at a break in his subject which would
naturally require a pause, or a point, he would be exceedingly apt to
run his characters, at this place, more than usually close together.
If you will observe the Ms. in the present instance, you will easily
detect five such cases of unusual crowding. Acting on this hint, I
made the division thus:
"'_A good glass in the bishop's hostel in the devil's
seat--twenty-one degrees and thirteen minutes--northeast and
by north--main branch seventh limb east side--shoot from the
left eye of the death's-head--a bee-line from the tree
through the shot fifty feet out_.'"
"Even this division," said I, "leaves me still in the dark."
"It left me also in the dark," replied Legrand, "for a few days,
during which I made diligent inquiry, in the neighborhood of
Sullivan's Island, for any building, which went by the name of the
'Bishop's Hotel'--for of course I dropped the obsolete word 'hostel.'
Gaining no information on the subject, I was on the point of extending
my sphere of search, and proceeding in a more systematic manner, when,
one morning, it entered into my head, quite suddenly, that this
'Bishop's Hostel' might have some reference to an old family, of the
name of Bessop, which, time out of mind, had held possession of an
ancient manor-house, about four miles to the northward of the island.
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