While the journalist deftly dealt with the lobster _a la_ Newburg,
as it bubbled in the chafing-dish before him, the deep-toned bell of
the church at the corner began to strike twelve.
"Give me your plates, quick," he said, "and we'll drink Jack's health
before it's to-morrow."
The artist and the soldier and the professor of mathematics did as they
were told; and then they filled their glasses.
The journalist, still standing, looked the soldier in the eye, and
said: "Jack, this is the first time The Quartet has met since the old
school-days, ten years ago and more. That this reunion should take
place on your birthday doubles the pleasure of the occasion. We wish
you many happy returns of the day!"
Then the artist and the mathematician rose also, and they looked at the
soldier, and repeated together, "Many happy returns of the day!"
Whereupon they emptied their glasses and sat down, and the soldier rose
to his feet.
"Thank you, boys," he began, "but I think you have already made me
enjoy this one birthday three times over. It was yesterday that I was
twenty-six, and----"
"But I didn't meet you till last night," interrupted the journalist;
"and yesterday was Sunday; and I couldn't get a box for the theatre and
find the other half of The Quartet all on Sunday, could I?"
"I'm not complaining because yesterday was my real birthday," the
soldier returned, "even if you have now protracted the celebration on
to the third day--it's just struck midnight, you know. All I have to
say is, that since you have given me a triplicate birthday this time,
any future anniversary will have to spread itself over four days if it
wants to beat the record, that's all." And he took his seat again.
"Well," said the artist, who had recently returned from Paris, "that
won't happen till we see 'the week of the four Thursdays,' as the
French say."
"And we sha'n't see that for a month of Sundays, I guess," the
journalist rejoined.
There was a moment of silence, and then the mathematician spoke for the
first time.
"A quadruplex birthday will be odd enough, I grant you," he began, "but
I don't think it quite as remarkable as the case of the lady who had no
birthday for sixteen years after she was born."
The soldier and the artist and the journalist all looked at the
professor of mathematics, and they all smiled; but his face remained
perfectly grave.
"What's that you say?" asked the journalist. "Sixteen years without a
birthday? Isn't that a very large order?"
"Did you know the lady herself?" inquired the soldier.
"She was my grandmother," the mathematician answered. "She had no
birthday for the first sixteen years of her life."
"You mean that she did not celebrate her birthdays, I suppose," the
artist remarked. "That's nothing. I know lots of families where they
don't keep any anniversaries at all."
"No," persisted the mathematician. "I meant what I said, and precisely
what I said. My grandmother did not keep her first fifteen birthdays
because she couldn't. She didn't have them to keep. They didn't happen.
The first time she had a chance to celebrate her birthday was when she
completed her sixteenth year--and I need not tell you that the family
made the most of the event."
"This a real grandmother you are talking about," asked the journalist,
"and not a fairy godmother?"
"I could understand her going without a birthday till she was four
years old," the soldier suggested, "if she was born on the 29th of
February."
"That accounts for four years," the mathematician admitted, "since my
grandmother _was_ born on the 29th of February."
"In what year?" the soldier pursued. "In 1796?"
The professor of mathematics nodded.
"Then that accounts for eight years," said the soldier.
"I don't see that at all," exclaimed the artist.
"It's easy enough," the soldier explained. "The year 1800 isn't a
leap-year, you know. We have a leap-year every four years, except the
final year of a century--1700, 1800, 1900."
"I didn't know that," said the artist.
"I'd forgotten it," remarked the journalist. "But that gets us over
only half of the difficulty. He says his grandmother didn't have a
birthday till she was sixteen. We can all see now how it was she went
without this annual luxury for the first eight years. But who robbed
her of the birthdays she was entitled to when she was eight and twelve.
That's what I want to know."
"Born February 29, 1796, the Gregorian calendar deprives her of a
birthday in 1800," the soldier said. "But she ought to have had her
first chance February 29, 1804. I don't see how----" and he paused in
doubt. "Oh!" he cried, suddenly; "where was she living in 1804?"
"Most of the time in Russia," the mathematician answered. "Although the
family went to England for a few days early in the year."
"What was the date when they left Russia?" asked the soldier, eagerly.
"They sailed from St. Petersburg in a Russian bark on the 10th of
February," answered the professor of mathematics, "and owing to
head-winds they did not reach England for a fortnight."
"Exactly," cried the soldier. "That's what I thought. That accounts for
it."
"I don't see how," the artist declared; "that is, unless you mean to
suggest that the Czar confiscated the little American girl's birthday
and sent it to Siberia."
"It's plain enough," the soldier returned. "We have the reformed
calendar, the Gregorian calendar, you know, and the Russians haven't.
They keep the old Julian calendar, and it's now ten days behind ours.
They celebrate Christmas three days after we have begun the new year.
So if the little girl left St. Petersburg in a Russian ship on February
10, 1804, by the old reckoning, and was on the water two weeks, she
would land in England after March 1st by the new calendar."
"That is to say," the artist inquired, "the little girl came into an
English port thinking she was going to have her birthday the next week,
and when she set foot on shore she found out that her birthday was
passed the week before. Is that what you mean?"
"Yes," answered the soldier; and the mathematician nodded also.
"Then all I have to say," the artist continued, "is that it was a mean
trick to play on a child that had been looking forward to her first
birthday for eight years--to knock her into the middle of next week in
that fashion!"
"And she had to go four years more for her next chance," said the
journalist. "Then she would be twelve. But you said she hadn't a
birthday till she was sixteen. How did she lose the one she was
entitled to in 1808? She wasn't on a Russian ship again, was she?"
"No," the mathematician replied; "she was on an American ship that
time."
"On the North Sea?" asked the artist.
"No," was the calm answer; "on the Pacific."
"Sailing east or west?" cried the soldier.
"Sailing east," answered the professor of mathematics, smiling again.
"Then I see how it might happen," the soldier declared.
"Well, I don't," confessed the artist.
The journalist said nothing, as it seemed unprofessional to admit
ignorance of anything.
"It is simple enough," the soldier explained. "You see, the world is
revolving about the sun steadily, and it is always high noon somewhere
on the globe. The day rolls round unceasing, and it is not cut off into
twenty-four hours. We happen to have taken the day of Greenwich or
Paris as the day of civilization, and we say that it begins earlier in
China and later in California; but it is all the same day, we say.
Therefore there has to be some place out in the middle of the Pacific
Ocean where we lose or gain a day--if we are going east, we gain it; if
we are going west, we lose it. Now I suppose this little girl of twelve
was on her way from some Asiatic port to some American port, and they
stopped on their voyage at Honolulu. Perhaps they dropped anchor there
just before midnight on their February 28, 1808, thinking that the
morrow would be the 29th; but when they were hailed from the shore,
just after midnight, they found out that it was already March 1st."
As the soldier finished, he looked at the mathematician for
confirmation of his explanation.
Thus appealed to, the professor of mathematics smiled and nodded, and
said: "You have hit it. That's just how it was that my grandmother lost
the birthday she ought to have had when she was twelve, and had to go
four years more without one."
"And so she really didn't have a birthday till she was sixteen!" the
artist observed. "Well, all I can say is, your great-grandfather took
too many chances. I don't think he gave the child a fair show. I hope
he made it up to her when she was sixteen--that's all!"
An hour later The Quartet separated. The soldier and the artist walked
away together, but the journalist delayed the mathematician.
"I say," he began, "that yarn about your grandmother was very
interesting. It is an extraordinary combination of coincidences. I
can see it in the Sunday paper with a scare-head--
'SIXTEEN YEARS WITHOUT A BIRTHDAY!'