"Speaking of odd figures," said a gentleman who occupies some post in a
Government office, "one of the queerest characters I know is an old lame
widow who climbs up a hill every week to draw her pension at the village
post office. She crawls up at the rate of a mile and a half an hour and
comes down at the rate of four and a half miles an hour, so that it
takes her just six hours to make the double journey. Can any of you tell
me how far it is from the bottom of the hill to the top?"
[Illustration]