Solution to our last puzzle: WHEN SOME MEN DISCHARGE AN OBLIGATION, YOU CAN HEAR THE REPORT FOR MILES AROUND. ---MARK TWAIN
Here's from Null and Void:
The language has changed a bit since then. “Discharge” didn’t have anything to do with batteries, a gun or cannon when fired discharged a bullet or shell. Discharge also meant to remove or finish or eliminate, think discharging the static that’s making your hair stand on end.
“Report” was what was in the newspaper, or was shouted by the news vendors selling the paper. It therefore means hearing the sound of a kid hawking the newspaper ‘extree extree read all about it!!!’ In other words, something you heard before you actually got the news.
In a era of black powered and subsonic artillery shells you’s hear the sound of the gunfire before you felt the fury of the shell.
So an immodest or self-aggrandizing man would make a point of letting everyone in earshot know he’s paid a bill or returned a favor. Whether they were the target of the payment or merely a bystander. It’s really only the business between him and his creditor.
Anyone who has to tell you he’s honest or has to tell you he’s a good man, probably isn’t...
Holy Moly that was hard. It took me 9 minutes and I had to start over twice. I kept aspiring to stand taller in the cryptogram game and finally did. The three letter words were the key to solving for me.
I got it!! And it didn’t even take me long. I started with the usual 3 letter words that follow a comma (there’s only a few to choose from) and then kind of by-guess-and-by-gosh picked through it with relative ease. I’m amazed, too, because I never heard of that quote or that person before.
Cripes. Got hung up on ABCDBA, and it took a while to hit on it, even though I was pretty confident about A and B.