The girl who shared Herbert'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 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 mixed up 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."