'Fly at once all is discovered-Teralbay.' Yes, that would look rather well. I shall write anonymous letters over the name. putt the Teralbay carnation will catch your eye at the Temple show. I shall patent a breakfast food called 'Teralbay' I shall say 'Teralbay!' when I miss a 2-ft. While I live it shall be my telegraphic address. When I die 'Teralbay' will be written on my heart. Or did Lord Melbourne say, 'I'm awfully sorry, madam, but I find I put a `y' in too many?' But no-history could not have remained silent over such a tragedy as that. (And that she still liked Melbourne afterwards-which is surprising.) Did she ever guess it? Or did Lord Melbourne have to tell her in the morning, and did she say, 'Why, of _course_!' I expect so. And now I think of it, history does not tell us what she did do, beyond that she passed a sleepless night. This, I am sure, is not what Queen Victoria did. Yes, that's it.) Well, now suppose that you put down a new order of letters-such as 'raytable'-every six seconds, which is very easy going, and suppose that you can spare an hour a day for it then by the 303rd day-a year hence, if you rest on Sundays-you are bound to have reached a solution.īut perhaps this is not playing the game. (Wait a moment while I work it out again. This may not be obvious to you at once you may have thought that it was only 181,439 but you may take my word for it that I am right. There are eight letters in Teralbay and two of them are the same, so that there must be 181,440 ways of writing the letters out. This will take a long time, but victory is certain. But if you find that it cannot be captured by strategy or assault, then there is only one way of taking it. In this way it may be surprised into giving up its secret. You may then waggle your eyes again, look at it upside down or sideways, or stalk it carefully from the southwest and plunge upon it suddenly when it is not ready for you.

If you do this, words like 'alterably' and 'laboratory' emerge, which a little thought shows you to be wrong. The first is to waggle your eyes and see what you get. Teralbay-what does it make? There are two ways of solving a problem of this sort. While this is the case, the only word I can write about is Teralbay. This quixotic loyalty has been the undoing of me my chances of a solution have slipped by, and I am beginning to fear that they will never return.

Whenever I seemed to be getting warm I hurriedly thought of something else. For two hours or so, therefore, I merely toyed with it. After this, one could not be so disloyal as to solve it at once. He added that Lord Melbourne-this, he alleged, is a well-known historical fact-Lord Melbourne had given this word to Queen Victoria once, and it had kept her awake the whole night. A friend-no, I can call him a friend no longer-a person gave me this collection of letters as I was going to bed and challenged me to make a proper word of it. Rearrange the letters, however, and it becomes such a word. Teralbay is not a word which one uses much in ordinary life. This morning I have only one word in my brain, and I cannot get rid of it. Ten thousand words on any theme from Tin-tacks to Tomatoes would have been easy to me. Last night my brain was crammed with lofty thoughts on the subject-and for that matter, on every other subject. The short essay on 'The Improbability of the Infinite' which I was planning for you yesterday will now never be written.

A lost masterpiece by a a milne