The Tumble-Bug, overhearing this discussion, said he was willing that the parvenus of these new times should find what comfort they might in their wise-drawn theories, since as far as he was concerned he was content to be of the old first families and proud to point back to his place among the old original aristocracy of the land.

“Enjoy your mushroom dignity, stinking of the varnish of yesterday’s veneering, since you like it,” said he; “suffice it for the Tumble-Bugs that they come of a race that rolled their fragrant spheres down the solemn aisles of antiquity, and left their imperishable works embalmed in the Old Red Sandstone to proclaim it to the wasting centuries as they file along the highway of Time!”

“Oh, take a walk!” said the chief of the expedition, with derision.

The summer passed, and winter approached.  In and about many of the caverns were what seemed to be inscriptions.  Most of the scientists said they were inscriptions, a few said they were not.  The chief philologist, Professor Woodlouse, maintained that they were writings, done in a character utterly unknown to scholars, and in a language equally unknown.  He had early ordered his artists and draftsmen to make facsimiles of all that were discovered; and had set himself about finding the key to the hidden tongue.  In this work he had followed the method which had always been used by decipherers previously.  That is to say, he placed a number of copies of inscriptions before him and studied them both collectively and in detail.  To begin with, he placed the following copies together: 

     The American hotel.  Meals at all hours. 
     The shades.  No smoking. 
     Boats for hire cheap Union prayer meeting, 6 P.M. 
     Billiards.  The waterside journal. 
     The A1 barber shop.  Telegraph office. 
     Keep off the grass.  Try BRANDRETH’S pills. 
     Cottages for rent during the watering season. 
     For sale cheap.  For sale cheap. 
     For sale cheap.  For sale cheap.

At first it seemed to the professor that this was a sign-language, and that each word was represented by a distinct sign; further examination convinced him that it was a written language, and that every letter of its alphabet was represented by a character of its own; and finally he decided that it was a language which conveyed itself partly by letters, and partly by signs or hieroglyphics.  This conclusion was forced upon him by the discovery of several specimens of the following nature: