ious smile,
which seemed to say: "Yes, gentlemen, I see that some of you are getting
ready for a tussle. I am in hopes of being able to oblige you."

"Now," he continued, "it is generally conceded that an ounce of practice
is worth a good many pounds of precept, so I will get to the practice. I
need hardly remind you that ever since mathematics became an exact
science, three problems have been recognised as impossible of
solution--trisecting the triangle, squaring the circle, and doubling the
cube. I have now the pleasure of announcing that I have had the great
good fortune to discover certain formulae which, so far, at least, as I
can see, make the solution of those problems not only possible, but
comparatively easy--to those who know how to use them."

As he said this, Franklin Marmion looked directly at Hoskins van
Huysman. He was the challenger now, and there was a glint in his eyes
and a smile on his lips which showed that he meant business. The
American writhed, and had it not been for Brenda's gently but firmly
restraining hand, he might have jumped to his feet and precipitated
matters in a somewhat embarrassing fashion. The chairman looked up at
the lecturer with elevated eyelids which had a note of interrogation
under each of them, and then there came that sound of shifting in seats
and breathing in many low keys which denotes that an audience has been
wound up to a very tense pitch of expectation. If a smaller man had said
such words to such hearers some one would have laughed, and then would
have burst forth a storm of derision. But the keenest critic had never
found Franklin Marmion wrong yet, and he had far too great a reputation
to permit himself to say in such a place that which he did not seriously
mean. So the hum died down as he went to the black-board, and Nitocris
looked at Merrill with something like fear in her eyes.

"If he does that," whispered Phadrig to the Prince in Russian, "the
story that Pent-Ah and Neb-Anat told will be true--which the High Gods
forbid!"

"As the trisection of the triangle is, perhaps, the simplest of the
three problems," said the lecturer, with almost judicial calmness, "we
will, if you please, begin with that. I hope that gentlemen who have
brought note-books with them will be kind enough to follow my
calculations and check any error that I may make."

But a good threescore note-books, pencils, and stylographic pens were
out already, and hundreds of eyes were eagerl