Both consonants and vocal signs may often unite without an angle. This adds to the facility of the writing; both letters should be struck as though they were one. But all angles are determined by strict geometrical laws, and the student should be as careful to make an angle when it is required, as to avoid it when it is not required. Observe that the consonant curves are quarter-circles, and the vocal curves semi-circles, and you will easily determine the angle. Reading Exercise 2, lines 1, 2, and 13.

Note. - It will be remembered that a vowel before a consonant, or joined to it at the point of commencement, must make an angle; but on the end, the semi-circles (except A) may form hooks. This is a species of contraction, since it saves one stroke. See Illustration L.

Double letters, so called, in the common orthography, do not occur in Tachygraphy; but the same letter is often repeated, with an intervening vocal sound. When this sound is represented by a dot or disjoined vowel, we have forms seen in Illustration M.

Exercise 13.

Key, debt, mated, bubble, public, dead, favor, memory, unending, assessor, accessory, sustenance. Judge, edged, etched, judged, latched, en rarer, horror.

Move, method, mother, meditate, met. Gun, ken, government, court, color, bend, ribbon, ebon, depend. Doth, death, eight. Sun, sung, goodness, business, lemon, melon, multitude, multitudinously, luminously. Hazel, Joseph, several, safe. Antedated, indebted, undoubted, tnismated.

Note. - The student should bear in mind that a ready use of the alphabetic characters in all their possible combinations is the basis of good and rapid writing. The preceding exercises should be written and corrected by a competent instructor; and then rewritten many times until the pupil can write them with no hesitation. When this is accomplished, it will be safe to proceed to the next chapter.

COMPOUND SIGNS.

THE RA SERIES.

THE WA SERIES.

THE FINAL CIRCLE.