Saturday, March 10, 2007

Another Riddle

"I see you are burning the midnight oil again, sir."

The figure looked up from his computer screen. He was almost surprised at his visitor's arrival -- almost, but not quite; in a strange way, he had been expecting him.

"Just learning a little about money, Alfred."

"Not about yours, I presume."

The figure smiled at the thought of investigating Wayne Enterprises in the middle of the night from the Batcave.

"No, Alfred. About somebody else's."

"This was just found at the front gate, sir."

"What is it?" Looking at it, the figure could see it was addressed only to Bruce Wayne.

"A letter for you, Master Bruce. Per your established instructions, it has already been opened."

"What does it say?"

"Perhaps you should read it, sir."

The figure glanced at Alfred, then took the large envelope, and removed a piece of paper from it. On the paper, newsprint letters, which had been cut out from a newspaper, were glued down to spell out a message:

Bought new and thrown out unread,
What once was news is trash instead.
Found by another and read for good measure,
One man's trash is another man's treasure.


They looked at each other.

"It's another riddle, sir."

The figure read it again, this time aloud. "'Bought new and thrown out unread, What once was news is trash instead. Found by another and read for good measure, One man's trash is another man's treasure.'" He paused thoughtfully. "The answer is: a newspaper."

"But what does that have to do with money, sir?"

"'Curiouser and curiouser,'" the figure repeated words from one of his favorite stories, one Alfred had read to him many times as a child.

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