O. Henry

               Calloway's Code


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The New York Enterprise sent H. B. Calloway as
special correspondent to the Russo-Japanese-Portsmouth
war.

For two months Calloway hung about Yokohama
and Tokio, shaking dice with the other correspondents
for drinks of 'rickshaws -- oh, no, that's something to 
ride in;  anyhow, he wasn't earning the salary that his
paper was paying him.  But that was not Calloway's
fault.  The little brown men who held the strings of
Fate between their fingers were not ready for the readers
of the Enterprise to season their breakfast bacon and
eggs with the battles of the descendants of the gods.

But soon the column of correspondents that were to
go out with the First Army tightened their field-glass
belts and went down to the Yalu with Kuroki.  Calloway
was one of these.

Now, this is no history of the battle of the Yalu River.
That has been told in detail by the correspondents who
gazed at the shrapnel smoke rings from a distance of
three miles.  But, for justice's sake, let it be understood
that the Japanese commander prohibited a nearer view.

Calloway's feat was accomplished before the battle.
What he did was to furnish the Enterprise with the
biggest beat of the war.  That paper published exclu-
sively and in detail the news of the attack on the lines of
the Russian General on the same day that it
was made.  No other paper printed a word about it for
two days afterward, except a London paper, whose
account was absolutely incorrect and untrue.

Calloway did this in face of the fact that General Kuroki
was making, his moves and living his plans with the pro-
foundest secrecy, as far as the world outside his camps was
concerned.  The correspondents were forbidden to send out
any news whatever of his plans; and every message that
was allowed on the wires was censored -- with rigid severity.

The correspondent for the London paper handed in
a cablegram describing, Kuroki's plans; but as it was
wrong from beginning to end the censor grinned and let
it go through.

So, there they were -- Kuroki on one side of the Yalu
with forty-two thousand infantry, five thousand cavalry,
and one hundred and twenty-four guns.  On the other
side, Zassulitch waited for him with only twenty-three
thousand men, and with a long stretch of river to guard.
And Calloway had got hold of some important inside
information that he knew would bring the Enterprise
staff around a cablegram as thick as flies around a Park
Row lemonade stand.  If he could only get that message
past the censor -- the new censor who had arrived and
taken his post that day!

Calloway did the obviously proper thing.  He lit his pipe
and sat down on a gun carriage to think it over.  And
there we must leave him; for the rest of the story belongs
to Vesey, a sixteen-dollar-a-week reporter on the Enterprise.

Calloway's cablegram was handed to the managing editor
at four o'clock in the afternoon.  He read it three times; and
then drew a pocket mirror from a pigeon-hole in his desk,
and looked at his reflection carefully.  Then he went over to
the desk of Boyd, his assistant (he usually called Boyd when
he wanted him), and laid the cablegram before him.

"It's from Calloway," he said.  "See what you make
of it."

The message was dated at Wi-ju, and these were the
words of it:

Foregone preconcerted rash witching goes muffled
rumour mine dark silent unfortunate richmond existing
great hotly brute select mooted parlous beggars ye angel
incontrovertible.

Boyd read it twice.

"It's either a cipher or a sunstroke," said he.

"Ever hear of anything like a code in the office -- a
secret code?"  asked the m. e., who had held his desk
for only two years.  Managing editors come and go.

"None except the vernacular that the lady specials write
in," said Boyd.  "Couldn't be an acrostic, could it?"
                         
"I thought of that," said the m. e., "but the beginning
letters contain only four vowels.  It must be a code of
some sort."

"Try em in groups," suggested Boyd.  "Let's see
-- 'Rash witching goes' -- not with me it doesn't.  'Muf-
fled rumour mine' -- must have an underground wire.
'Dark silent unfortunate richmond' -- no reason why he
should knock that town so hard.  'Existing great hotly'
-- no it doesn't pan out I'll call Scott."

The city editor came in a hurry, and tried his luck.
A city editor must know something about everything;
so Scott knew a little about cipher-writing.

"It may be what is called an inverted alphabet cipher,"
said he.  "I'll try that.  'R' seems to be the oftenest
used initial letter, with the exception of 'm.' Assuming
'r' to mean 'e', the most frequently used vowel, we
transpose the letters -- so."

Scott worked rapidly with his pencil for two minutes;
and then showed the first word according to his reading
-- the word "Scejtzez."

"Great!"  cried Boyd.  "It's a charade.  My first
is a Russian general.  Go on, Scott."

"No, that won't work," said the city editor.  "It's
undoubtedly a code.  It's impossible to read it without
the key.  Has the office ever used a cipher code?"

"Just what I was asking," said the m.e.  "Hustle
everybody up that ought to know.  We must get at it
some way.  Calloway has evidently got hold of some-
thing big, and the censor has put the screws on, or he
wouldn't have cabled in a lot of chop suey like this."

Throughout the office of the Enterprise a dragnet
was sent, hauling in such members of the staff as would
be likely to know of a code, past or present, by reason
of their wisdom, information, natural intelligence, or
length of servitude.  They got together in a group in
the city room, with the m. e. in the centre.  No one had
heard of a code.  All began to explain to the head investi-
gator that newspapers never use a code, anyhow -- that
is, a cipher code.  Of course the Associated Press stuff
is a sort of code -- an abbreviation, rather -- but --

The m. e. knew all that, and said so.  He asked each man
how long he had worked on the paper.  Not one of them
had drawn pay from an Enterprise envelope for longer than
six years.  Calloway had been on the paper twelve years.
"Try old Heffelbauer," said the m. e. "He was here
when Park Row was a potato patch."

Heffelbauer was an institution.  He was half janitor,
half handy-man about the office, and half watchman --
thus becoming the peer of thirteen and one-half tailors.

Sent for, he came, radiating his nationality.
"Heffelbauer," said the m. e., "did you ever hear of a
code belonging to the office a long time ago - a private
code?  You know what a code is, don't you?"

"Yah," said Heffelbauer.  "Sure I know vat a code is.
Yah, apout dwelf or fifteen year ago der office had a code.
Der reborters in der city-room haf it here."

"Ah!"  said the m. e. "We're getting on the trail now.
Where was it kept, Heffelbauer?  What do you know
about it?"

"Somedimes," said the retainer, "dey keep it in der
little room behind der library room."

"Can you find it asked the m. e. eagerly.  "Do you
know where it is?"

"Mein Gott!"  said Heffelbauer.  "How long you
dink a code live?  Der reborters call him a maskeet.
But von day he butt mit his head der editor,
und -- "

"Oh, he's talking about a goat," said Boyd.  "Get
out, Heffelbauer."

Again discomfited, the concerted wit and resource of
the Enterprise huddled around Calloway's puzzle, con-
sidering its mysterious words in vain.

Then Vesey came in.

Vesey was the youngest reporter.  He had a thirty-
two-inch chest and wore a number fourteen collar; but
his bright Scotch plaid suit gave him presence and con-
ferred no obscurity upon his whereabouts.  He wore his
hat in such a position that people followed him about to
see him take it off, convinced that it must be hung upon
a peg driven into the back of his head.  He was never
without an immense, knotted, hard-wood cane with a
German-silver tip on its crooked handle.  Vesey was
the best photograph hustler in the office.  Scott said it
was because no living human being could resist the per-
sonal triumph it was to hand his picture over to Vesey.
Vesey always wrote his own news stories, except the big
ones, which were sent to the rewrite men.  Add to this
fact that among all the inhabitants, temples, and groves
of the earth nothing existed that could abash Vesey, and
his dim sketch is concluded.

Vesey butted into the circle of cipher readers very much
as Heffelbauer's "code" would have done, and asked
what was up.  Some one explained, with the touch of
half-familiar condescension that they always used toward
him.  Vesey reached out and took the cablegram from
the m. e.'s hand.  Under the protection of some special
Providence, he was always doing appalling things like
that, and coming, off unscathed.

"It's a code," said Vesey.  "Anybody got the key?"

"The office has no code," said Boyd, reaching for the
message.  Vesey held to it.

"Then old Callowav expects us to read it, anyhow,"
said he.  "He's up a tree, or something, and he's made
this up so as to get it by, the censor.  It's up to us.  Gee!
I wish they had sell, me, too.  Say -- we can't afford to
fall down on our end of it.  'Foregone, preconcerted
rash, witching' -- h'm."

Vesey sat down on a table corner and began to whistle
softly, frowning at the cablegram.

"Let's have it, please," said the m. e. "We've got to
get to work on it."

"I believe I've got a line on it," said Vesey.  "Give
me ten minutes."

He walked to his desk, threw his hat into a waste-basket,
spread out flat on his chest like a gorgeous lizard, and
started his pencil going.  The wit and wisdom of the
Enterprise remained in a loose group, and smiled at one
another, nodding their heads toward Vesey.  Then they
began to exchange their theories about the cipher.

It took Vesey exactly fifteen minutes.  He brought to
the m. e. a pad with the code-key written on it.

"I felt the swing of it as soon as I saw it," said Vesey.
"Hurrah for old Calloway!  He's done the Japs and
every paper in town that prints literature instead of news.
Take a look at that."

Thus had Vesey set forth the reading of the code:

          Foregone - conclusion
          Preconcerted - arrangement
          Rash - act
          Witching - hour of midnight
          Goes - without saying
          Muffled - report
          Rumour - hath it
          Mine - host
          Dark - horse
          Silent - majority
          Unfortunate - pedestrians
          Richmond - in the field
          Existing - conditions
          Great-White Way
          Hotly - contested
          Brute - force
          Select - few
          Mooted - question
          Parlous - times
          Beggars - description
          Ye - correspondent
          Angel - unawares
          Incontrovertible - fact

--------
*Mr. Vesey afterward explained that the logical journalistic complement of the
word "unfortunate" was once the word "victim."  But, since the automobile be-
came so popular, the correct following word is now pedestrians.  Of course, in
Calloway's code it meant infantry.

"It's simply newspaper English," explained Vesey.
"I've been reporting on the Enterprise long enough to
know it by heart.  Old Calloway gives us the cue word,
and we use the word that naturally follows it just as we
em in the paper.  Read it over, and you'll see how
pat they drop into their places.  Now, here's the message
he intended us to get."

Vesey handed out another sheet of paper.

   Concluded arrangement to act at hour of midnight
   without saying.  Report hath it that a large body of
   cavalry and an overwhelming force of infantry will be
   thrown into the field.  Conditions white.  Way con-
   tested by only a small force.  Question the Times descrip-
   tion.  Its correspondent is unaware of the facts.

"Great stuff!"  cried Boyd excitedly.  "Kuroki crosses
the Yalu to-night and attacks.  Oh, we won't do a thing
to the sheets that make up with Addison's essays, real
estate transfers, and bowling scores!"

"Mr. Vesey," said the m. e., with his jollying - which -
you - should - regard - as - a - favour manner, "you have
cast a serious reflection upon the literary standards of
the paper that employs you.  You have also assisted
materially in giving us the biggest 'beat' of the year.  I
will let you know in a day or two whether you are to be
discharged or retained at a larger salary.  Somebody
send Ames to me."

Ames was the king-pin, the snowy-petalled Marguerite,
the star-bright looloo of the rewrite men.  He saw
attempted murder in the pains of green-apple colic,
cyclones in the summer zephyr, lost children in every top-
spinning urchin, an uprising of the down-trodden masses in
every hurling of a derelict potato at a passing automobile.
When not rewriting, Ames sat on the porch of his Brooklyn
villa playing checkers with his ten-year-old son.

Ames and the "war editor" shut themselves in a room.
There was a map in there stuck full of little pins that
represented armies and divisions.  Their fingers had
been itching for days to move those pins along the crooked
line of the Yalu.  They did so now; and in words of fire
Ames translated Calloway's brief message into a front
page masterpiece that set the world talking.  He told of
the secret councils of the Japanese officers; gave Kuroki's
flaming speeches in full; counted the cavalry and infantry
to a man and a horse; described the quick and silent
building, of the bridge at Stuikauchen, across which the
Mikado's legions were hurled upon the surprised Zas-
sulitch, whose troops were widely scattered along the river.
And the battle!  -- well, you know what Ames can do
with a battle if you give him just one smell of smoke for
a foundation.  And in the same story, with seemingly
supernatural knowledge, he gleefully scored the most
profound and ponderous paper in England for the false
and misleading account of the intended movements of
the Japanese First Army printed in its issue of the same date.

Only one error was made; and that was the fault of
the cable operator at Wi-ju.  Calloway pointed it out
after he came back.  The word "great" in his code
should have been "gage," and its complemental words
"of battle."  But it went to Ames "conditions white,"
and of course he took that to mean snow.  His description
of the Japanese army strum, struggling through the snowstorm,
blinded by the whirling, flakes, was thrillingly vivid.  The
artists turned out some effective illustrations that made a
hit as pictures of the artillery dragging their guns through 
the drifts.  But, as the attack was made on the first day
of May, "conditions white" excited some amusement.
But it in made no difference to the Enterprise, anyway.
          
It was wonderful.  And Calloway was wonderful in
having made the new censor believe that his jargon of
words meant no more than a complaint of the dearth of
news and a petition for more expense money.  And
Vesey was wonderful.  And most wonderful of all are
words, and how they make friends one with another,
being oft associated, until not even obituary notices
them do part.

On the second day following, the city editor halted at
Vesey's desk where the reporter was writing the story of
a man who had broken his leg by falling into a coal-hole
-- Ames having failed to find a murder motive in it.

"The old man says your salary is to be raised to twenty
a week," said Scott.

"All right," said Vesey.  "Every little helps.  Say
-- Mr. Scott, which would you say -- 'We can state
without fear of successful contradiction,' or, 'On the whole
it can be safely asserted'?"