AN ABLE HELPER
Nearly all the guests had left the Fairfield house, after Nan’s pleasant
afternoon tea. Philip Van Reypen had escorted his aunt out to her
carriage, and she had driven away, while the young man returned for a
few moments’ further chat with his hostess.
Though he and Nan had met but a few times, they had become rather
chummy, which, however, was not unusual for him, if he liked anybody.
Young Van Reypen was of a gay and social nature, and made friends easily
by his sheer good-humour. He admired Mrs. Fairfield very much, but, even
more, he admired Patty. Ever since he had met her unexpectedly on his
aunt’s staircase, he had thought her the prettiest and sweetest girl he
had ever seen. So he was making every endeavour to cultivate her
acquaintance, and, being of rather astute observation, he concluded it
wise to make friends with the whole Fairfield family.
So the big, handsome chap went back to the drawing-room, and dropped on
a sofa beside Nan.
“It’s awfully cold out,” he observed, plaintively.
“Is it?” returned his hostess, innocently.
“Yes; I hate to go out in the cold.”
“But you have to go, sooner or later.”
“Yes; but it may be warmer later.”
“On the contrary, it will probably grow colder.”
“Oh! do you think so? But, then again, it may not, and I’m quite willing
to take the chance.”
“Mr. Van Reypen, I do believe you’re hinting for an invitation to stay
here to dinner!”
“Oh, Mrs. Fairfield, how clever you are! How could you possibly guess
that, now?”
Nan laughed and hesitated. She liked the young man, but she wasn’t sure
that Patty wanted him there. Patty was developing into a somewhat
decided young person, and liked to make her own plans. And Nan well knew
that Patty was the real magnet that drew Mr. Van Reypen so often to the
house.
“What do you think?” she said, as the girl came into the room; “this
plain-spoken young man is giving me to understand that, if he were
urged, he would dine here to-night.”
“Of course, it would require a great deal of most insistent urging,” put
in Philip.
“Don’t let’s urge him,” said Patty, but the merry smile she flashed at
the young man belied her words.
“If you smile like that, I’ll do the urging myself,” he cried. “Please,
Mrs. Fairfield, _do_ let me stay; I’ll be as good as gold.”
“What say you, Patty?” asked Nan.
“He may stay,” rejoined Patty, “if he’ll help me with my work on those
puzzles.”
“Puzzles? Well, I just guess I will! I’ll do them all for you. Where’s
your slate and pencil?”
“Oh, not yet!” laughed Patty. “We won’t do those until after dinner.”
“Why do you do them at all?” asked Nan; “and what are they, anyway?”
“I’ll tell you,” began Patty; “no, I won’t, either. At least, not now.
It’s a grand project,—a really great scheme. And I’ll unfold it at
dinner, then father can hear about it, too.”
So, later, when the quartette were seated around the dinner table, Patty
announced that she would tell of her great project.
“You see,” she began, “it’s a sort of advertisement for a big motor-car
company.”
“Don’t try to float a motor-car company, Patty,” advised her father;
“it’s too big a project for a young girl.”
“I’m not going to do that, Daddy Fairfield; but I begin to think that
what I am going to do is almost as hard. You see, this big company has
issued a book of a hundred puzzles. Now, whoever guesses all those
puzzles correctly will get the prize. And,—the prize is a lovely
electric runabout. And I want it!”
“Hevings! hevings!” murmured Mr. Van Reypen. “She wants an Electric
Runabout! Why, Infant, you’ll break your blessed neck!”
“Indeed, I won’t! I guess I’ve brains enough to run an electric car! If
I guess those puzzles, that’ll prove it. They’re fearfully hard! Listen
to this one. ‘When did London begin with an L and end with an E?’”
“That is hard,” said Nan. “It must be some foreign name for London. But
_Londres_ won’t do.”
“No,” said Patty, “I thought of that. I expect it’s some old Anglo-Saxon
or Hardicanute name.”
“I expect it’s rubbish,” said her father. “Patty, don’t begin on these
things. You’ll wear yourself out. I know how you hammer at anything,
once you begin it, and you’ll be sitting up nights with these foolish
questions until you’re really ill.”
“Oh, no, I won’t, father. And beside, Mr. Van Reypen is going to help
me, lots.”
“Angel Child,” said Philip, looking at her with a patronising air, “if
all your questions are as easy as that one you just quoted, your task is
already accomplished.”
“Why, do you know the answer?” cried Patty. “Oh, tell it to me! I’ve
puzzled so hard over it!”
“It’s a quibble, of course,—a sort of catch, do you see? And the answer
is that London always began with an L, and _End_ always began with an
E.”
“Oh,” said Patty, catching the point at once, “I should have known that!
I pride myself on guessing those catch questions.”
“You were clever to guess it so quickly, Mr. Van Reypen,” said Mr.
Fairfield; “or have you heard it before?”
“Not exactly in that form, no. But so many quibbles are built like
that.”
“They are,” agreed Patty; “I ought to have known it. Well, I rather
think there are some others you won’t guess so easily.”
“How many have you done?” asked Nan.
“I’ve done about twenty-five out of the hundred. Some were dead easy,
and some I had to work on like the mischief.”
“But, Patty,” began her father, “what could you do with a motor car of
your own? You don’t want it.”
“Indeed, I do! Why, I’ll have perfectly elegant times scooting around by
myself.”
“But you can’t go by yourself in the New York streets! I won’t allow
it.”
“No, daddy dear, not here in the city, perhaps. But, if we go away for
the summer to some nice country place, where there’s nothing in the road
but cows, then I could run it alone. Or with some nice girl by my side.”
“Or with some nice boy by your side,” put in Philip. “I’m an awfully
nice boy,—they all say.”
“If you help me win it, I’ll give you a ride in it,” said Patty. “But I
haven’t won it yet.”
“No, and you won’t,” said her father. “Those contests are just planned
for an advertisement. The prize goes to the daughter of the chief
director.”
“Oh, Father Fairfield! What a mean thing to say! You don’t know that
that’s so at all. Now, I believe in their honesty.”
“So do I,” said Nan. “That isn’t like you, Fred, to express such an
unfounded suspicion.”
“Well, perhaps I spoke too hastily. But still, Patty, I don’t think you
want the thing. If you get it, I’ll sell it for you, and give you the
money.”
“No, sir-ee! I want it for itself alone. Oh, father, think what fun I’d
have spinning around the country! Wouldn’t we, Nan?”
“Yes, indeed! I think it would be great fun. And they say those
electrics are easy to manage.”
“Pooh! as easy as pie,” declared Patty. “And, anyway, I ran a big
touring car once, in France. A big gasoline one. An electric is nothing
to that.”
“What do you do to make it go?” asked her father, smiling.
“Oh, you just release the pawl that engages the clutch that holds the
lever that sustains the spring that lets go the brake—and there you
are!”
“Patty! where did you learn all that jargon?”
“’Tisn’t jargon; it’s sense. And now, my dear ones, will you all help me
in my stupendous undertaking? For, when I engage in a contest, I want to
win.”
“Is it winning, if you have so much help?” teased her father.
“Yes, it is. The contest is to get the answers to those hundred
questions and send them in. It doesn’t matter where you get your
answers. You don’t want to enter the contest yourself, do you, Mr. Van
Reypen?”
“No, no, fair lady. I would but be thy humble knight, and render such
poor assistance as I may.”
“All right, then; right after dinner, we’ll tackle that book of posers.”
And so, for a couple of hours that evening, Patty and Philip Van Reypen
exerted the full force of their intellects to unravel the knotty tangles
propounded by the little paper-covered book.
Mr. and Mrs. Fairfield tried for a time, but soon grew weary of the
difficult game.
“Now, take this one,” said Patty to her colleague; “‘How do you swallow
a door?’”
“Bolt it,” he replied, promptly. “That’s an old one.”
“I ought to have guessed that myself,” said Patty, “I’m so fond of
slang.”
“‘Bolt it,’ isn’t exactly slang.”
“No,—I s’pose not. It’s just rude diction. Now, answer this. ‘The poor
have two, the rich have none. Schoolboys have several, you have one.’”
“Well, that’s one of a class of puzzles to which the answer is usually
some letter of the alphabet.”
“Oh, of course!” cried Patty, quickly; “it is _O_. There, I guessed
that! Don’t you claim it!”
“Of course, you did! Now, you know this one about the headless man,
don’t you? It’s a classic.”
“No, I don’t. I can’t see any sense to it at all.”
“Read it.”
So Patty read aloud:
“‘A headless man had a letter to write
It was read by one who had lost his sight,
The dumb repeated it, word for word,
And he who was deaf both listened and heard.’”
“And you don’t know that?” asked Philip.
“No; the conditions are impossible.”
“Oh, no, they’re not. They only seem so. The answer is, ‘Nothing.’ You
see the headless man could write nothing, that’s naught, zero, or the
_letter O_. Then the blind man, of course, could read nothing; the dumb
man could repeat nothing; and the deaf man heard nothing.”
“Pooh! I don’t think that’s very clever.”
“Not modernly clever, but it’s a good example of the old-time enigmas.”
“Gracious! What a lot you know about puzzles. Have you always studied
them.”
“Yes; I loved them as a child, and I love them still. I think this whole
book is great fun. But we’ll strike some really difficult ones yet.
Here’s one I’ve never seen before. I’ll read it, and see if we, either
of us, get a clue.
“‘What is it men and women all despise,
Yet one and all alike as highly prize?
What kings possess not; yet full sure am I
That for that luxury they often sigh.
What never was for sale; yet any day
The thrifty housewife will give some away
The farmer needs it for his growing corn.
The tired husbandman delights to own.
The very thing for any sick friend’s room.
It coming, silent as Spring’s early bloom.
A great, soft, yielding thing, that no one fears.
A tiny thing, oft wet with mother’s tears.
A thing so holy that we often wear
It carefully hidden from the world’s cold stare.’”
“Well,” remarked Patty, complacently, as he finished reading, “I’ve
guessed that.”
“You have! You bright little thing! I haven’t. Now, don’t tell me. Wait
a minute! No, I can’t catch it. Tell me the answer.”
“Why, it’s An Old Shoe,” said Patty, laughing. “See how it all fits in.”
“Yes; it’s rattling clever. I like that one. Did you guess it as I
read?”
“Yes; it seemed to dawn on me as you went along. They often do that, if
I read them slowly. Now, here’s another old one. I’ll read, and you
guess.
“‘If it be true, as Welshmen say,
Honour depends on pedigree,
Then stand by—clear the way—
And let me have fair play.
For, though you boast thro’ ages dark
Your pedigree from Noah’s ark,
I, too, was with him there.
For I was Adam, Adam I,
And I was Eve, and Eve was I,
In spite of wind and weather;
But mark me—Adam was not I,
Neither was Mrs. Adam I,
Unless they were together.
Suppose, then, Eve and Adam talking—
With all my heart, but if they’re walking
There ends all simile.
For, tho’ I’ve tongue and often talk,
And tho’ I’ve feet, yet when I walk
There is an end of me!
Not such an end but I have breath,
Therefore to such a kind of death
I have but small objection.
I may be Turk, I may be Jew,
And tho’ a Christian, yet ’tis true
I die by Resurrection!’”
“Oh, I know that one! It’s a very old one and it’s capital. The answer
is A Bedfellow. See how clever it is; if I walk, it puts an end to me!
and I die by resurrection! Oh, that’s a good one. But you see this one?”
The golden head and the close-cropped dark one bent over the book
together and read these lines:
“I sit stern as a rock when I’m raising the wind,
But the storm once abated I’m gentle and kind;
I have kings at my feet who await but my nod
To kneel down in the dust, on the ground I have trod.
Though seen by the world, I am known but to few,
The Gentile deserts me, I am pork to the Jew.
I never have passed but one night in the dark,
And that was like Noah alone in the ark.
My weight is three pounds, my length is one mile,
And when you have guessed me you’ll say with a smile,
That my first and my last are the best of this isle.”
“Now that’s an old favourite with all puzzle-lovers,” said Philip, as
they finished reading it. “And it has never been satisfactorily guessed.
The usual answer is The Crown of England. But that doesn’t seem right to
me. However, I know no other.”
“But how does the Crown of England fit all the requirements?” said
Patty, looking over the text.
“Well, ‘this isle’ is supposed to mean Great Britain. And I believe it
is a historic fact that the Crown spent one night in a big chest called
the Ark.”
“What was it there for?”
“Oh, between the two reigns of William IV. and Victoria, there was a
delay of some hours in the night before she really received the crown,
and it was then placed in the ‘Ark.’ The weight of the crown is about
three pounds, and they say, if drawn out into gold wire, it would
stretch a mile.”
“It would depend on the thickness of the wire,” commented Patty, sagely.
“So it would. I don’t like the answer, anyway. But I can’t think of a
better one. Let’s try some easy ones.”
“Take this mathematical one, then. ‘Divide nine into two equal parts
that, added together, will make ten.’”
For some time Philip worked over this. He tried arabic figures, printed
words, and Roman numerals. At last, he exclaimed, “Ah, now we have it!”
“Have you really done it?” cried Patty.
“Yes. Look. I write the Roman nine, IX, you know. Then I fold the paper
crosswise, right through the middle. Now, what do you read on this
side?”
“IV,” said Patty; “that’s four.”
“Yes. Now I turn the folded paper over, and what do you read?”
“VI; that’s six.”
“Yes, and six and four are ten. Though, as you know, we divided our nine
into exactly equal parts by that crossways fold through the middle.”
“That’s a good one,” said Patty, with a little sigh; “but I don’t see
how you guessed it.”
“But _I_ see that you’re not to guess any more to-night,” said Mr.
Fairfield, coming into the library, and looking at the absorbed
puzzlers. “I’m going to take you both to the dining-room, where Mrs.
Fairfield will give you a very small bit of very light supper, and then,
Mr. Van Reypen, I shall send my daughter to her much-needed and
well-earned rest.”
“But I’m not a bit sleepy, father dear,” protested Patty.
“No matter, my child; if you go into this ridiculous game, you must
promise me not to overdo it. I will not allow you to work late at night
on these problems.”
“All right, Daddykins, I promise. Wow! but I’m hungry! Come on, Mr. Van
Reypen, let’s see what Nan will give us to support our famishing
frames.”
To the dining-room they went, and Nan’s gay little supper soon brushed
the cobwebs out of Patty’s brain. But she was well satisfied with her
first evening of real work on her “Puzzle Contest.”