diff --git a/projects/samskivert/src/java/com/samskivert/text/MessageUtil.java b/projects/samskivert/src/java/com/samskivert/text/MessageUtil.java
index d47031cd..0b9ddab5 100644
--- a/projects/samskivert/src/java/com/samskivert/text/MessageUtil.java
+++ b/projects/samskivert/src/java/com/samskivert/text/MessageUtil.java
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 //
-// $Id: MessageUtil.java,v 1.1 2003/12/11 06:32:18 mdb Exp $
+// $Id: MessageUtil.java,v 1.2 2003/12/11 06:34:08 mdb Exp $
 
 package com.samskivert.text;
 
@@ -62,6 +62,19 @@ public class MessageUtil
         return buf.toString();
     }
 
+    /**
+     * Used to escape single quotes so that they are not interpreted by
+     * {@link MessageFormat}. As we assume all single quotes are to be
+     * escaped, we cannot use the characters <code>{</code> and
+     * <code>}</code> in our translation strings, but this is a small
+     * price to pay to have to differentiate between messages that will
+     * and won't eventually be parsed by a {@link MessageFormat} instance.
+     */
+    public static String escape (String message)
+    {
+        return StringUtil.replace(message, "'", "''");
+    }
+
     /**
      * Unescapes characters that are escaped in a call to compose.
      */
@@ -225,17 +238,4 @@ public class MessageUtil
 
         return qualifiedKey.substring(qsidx+1);
     }
-
-    /**
-     * Used to escape single quotes so that they are not interpreted by
-     * {@link MessageFormat}. As we assume all single quotes are to be
-     * escaped, we cannot use the characters <code>{</code> and
-     * <code>}</code> in our translation strings, but this is a small
-     * price to pay to have to differentiate between messages that will
-     * and won't eventually be parsed by a {@link MessageFormat} instance.
-     */
-    protected static String escape (String message)
-    {
-        return StringUtil.replace(message, "'", "''");
-    }
 }