Journal to Stella is a work by Jonathan Swift first partly published posthumously in 1766.
The book consists of 65 letters to his friend, Esther Johnson, whom he called Stella and whom he may have secretly married. They were written between 1710 and 1713, from various locations in England, and though clearly intended for Stella's eyes were sometimes addressed to her companion Rebecca Dingley. It contains some puzzling passages, such as this one:
He gave me al bsadnuk lboinlpl dfaonr ufainfbtoy dpionufnad, which I sent him again by Mr. Lewis.
How should the obscured phrase be read?
A bank bill for fifty pound.
It's a null cipher1 in which alternate letters are ignored. This is the encrypted passage once more, with the letters that must be kept in bold and the letters that must be removed in grey.
Al bsadnuk lboinlpl dfaonr ufainfbtoy dpionufnad.
Assignment
Decode an encrypted message by omitting alternate letters: keep the first letter, drop the second letter, keep the third letter, drop the fourth letter, and so on. Keep any character that isn't a letter.
Input
An encrypted message (one line).
Output
The original message (one line).
Example
Input:
Al bsadnuk lboinlpl dfaonr ufainfbtoy dpionufnad.Output:
A bank bill for fifty pound.