nd what does Professor Hartley say about it?"

"He says, my dear Niti," said the Professor, in a voice which had
something like a note of awe in it, "that when Pythagoras thought out
that problem--which, of course, is not Euclid's at all--he almost saw
across the horizon of the world that we live in."

"But that," she interrupted, "would be something like looking across the
edge of time into eternity, and that--well, of course, that is quite
impossible, even to you, Dad, or Mr Hartley. What does he mean?"

"He doesn't quite mean that, dear," replied the Professor, still staring
straight at the motionless Mummy as though he half expected the lips
which had not spoken for fifty centuries to answer the question that was
shaping itself in his mind. "What Hartley means, dear, is this--that
when Pythagoras thought out that proposition he had almost reached the
border which divides the world of three dimensions from the world of
four."

"Which, as our dear old friend Euclid would say, is impossible; because
you know, Dad, if that were possible, everything else would be. Come,
now, Annie is bringing up your whisky and soda. Put away your problems
and take your night-cap, and do get to bed in something like respectable
time. Don't worry your dear old head about forty-seventh propositions
and fourth dimensions and mummies and that sort of thing, even if this
Mummy does happen to look a bit like me. Now, good night, and remember
that the night-cap _is_ to be a night-cap, and when you've put it on you
really must go to bed. You've been thinking a great deal too much this
week. Good-night, Dad."

"Good-night, Niti, dear. Don't trouble your head about my thinking.
Sufficient unto the brain are the thoughts thereof. Sometimes they are
more than sufficient. Good-night. Sleep well and don't dream, if you can
help it."

"And don't _you_ dream, Dad, especially about that wretched proposition.
Just have another pipe, and drink your whisky and go to bed. There's
something in your eyes that says you want a long night's rest.
Good-night now, and sleep well."

She pulled his head down and kissed him twice on his grey, thin cheek,
and then, with a wave of her hand and a laughing nod towards the Mummy,
vanished through the closing study door to go and dream her dreams,
which were not very likely to be of mummies and fourth dimensional
problems, and left her father to dream his.

Then a couple of lines from one of "B.V.'s" poems, which h