rbert's meringue at dinner (a brittle one, which
exploded just as he was getting into it) was kind and tactful.

"It doesn't matter a bit," she said, removing fragments of shell from her
lap; and, to put him at his ease again, went on "Are you interested in
little problems at all?"

Herbert, who would have been interested even in a photograph album just
then, emerged from his apologies and swore that he was.

"We're all worrying about one which Father saw in a paper. I do wish you
could solve it for us. It goes like this." And she proceeded to explain
it. Herbert decided that the small piece of meringue still in her hair
was not worth mentioning, and he listened to her with interest.

On the next morning I happened to drop in at Herbert's office.... And
that, in short, is how I was entangled in the business.

"Look here," said Herbert, "you used to be mathematical; here's something
for you."

"Let the dead past bury its dead," I implored. "I am now quite
respectable."

"It goes like this," he said, ignoring my appeal.

He then gave me the problem, which I hand on to you.

"A subaltern riding at the rear of a column of soldiers trotted up to the
captain in front and challenged him to a game of billiards for half a
crown a side, the loser to pay for the table. Having lost, he played
another hundred, double or quits, and then rode back, the column by this
time having travelled twice its own length, and a distance equal to the
distance it would have travelled if it had been going in the other
direction. What was the captain's name?"

Perhaps I have not got it quite right, for I have had an eventful week
since then; or perhaps Herbert didn't get it quite right; or perhaps the
girl with the meringue in her hair didn't get it quite right; but anyhow,
that was the idea of it.

"And the answer," said Herbert, "ought to be 'four cows,' but I keep on
making it 'eight and tuppence.' Just have a shot at it, there's a good
fellow. I promised the girl, you know."

I sat down, worked it out hastily on the back of an envelope, and made it
a yard and a half.

"No," said Herbert; "I know it's 'four cows,' but I can't get it."

"Sorry," I said, "how stupid of me; I left out the table-money."

I did it hastily again and made it three minutes twenty-five seconds.

"It _is_ difficult, isn't it?" said Herbert. "I thought, as you used to
be mathematical and as I'd promised the girl--"

"Wait a moment," I said, still busy wit