Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 50 — page 68: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

HIDDEN TREASURE OF KALIN could tell what the words meant or even how to speak them. He did a wise thing. He pointed to a man and made him the first Reader. He gave him a place to live and food to eat, fire to warm himself and clothes to wear. He gave him all a man would need, and he gave him a single command. ‘Learn to Read,’ the King said, and so it was.” ‘And did he? Learn to read, I mean?” “I know not. All that I know is what my master told me when he lay dying, and I became the Reader, for that was a long, long time ago, and men’s memories are not what they should be. But one thing is certain. Since that time there has always been a Reader here, and that Reader has had a Pupil to pass on his knowledge when he dies. Slowly, and it took many Readers, we learned how to make sounds which were the words, and one Reader, so I believe, even tried to copy the words. He used a charred 67 stick and wrote strange signs on the table. He was betrayed by his Pupil and died by burning.” | “Why, Reader?” “He was a fool. For who knows what terrors he may have set free by his bungling? Until we know the true mean- ing of the words how dare we copy them? For by copy- ing them we may double powers of great evil and un- leash forces only held in check by the skill of the ancients who locked them in the Books.” ‘They are but marks,” said the Pupil slowly. “Strange to be sure, but similar marks are made by children at their play. What harm in that?” “Could you copy them?” Abruptly the old man thrust the open book towards his pupil. “See? How small they are, and how neat? How many to a page, and all one like the other? Could you copy them so? Could any man?” He stared avidly at the fretted page. “Such words comicloooks.con