ashaw leaned forward and clasped his hands together. He was biding his
time.

"Mayor" Purvis alone seemed unmoved. "What's that book he's got open in
front of him?" he asked.

"May I see?" interposed Challis hurriedly, and he rose from his chair,
picked up the book in question, glanced at it for a moment, and then
handed it to the grocer. The book was Van Vloten's Dutch text and Latin
translation of Spinoza's Short Treatise.

The grocer turned to the title-page. "Ad--beany--dick--ti--de--Spy--nozer,"
he read aloud and then: "What's it all about, Mr. Challis?" he asked.
"German or something, I take it?"

"In any case it has nothing to do with elementary arithmetic," replied
Challis curtly, "Mr. Steven will set your mind at ease on that point."

"Certainly, certainly," murmured Steven.

Grocer Purvis closed the book carefully and replaced it on the desk.
"What does half a stone o' loaf sugar at two-three-farthings come to?"
he asked.

The Wonder shook his head. He did not understand the grocer's
phraseology.

"What is seven times two and three quarters?" translated Challis.

"19.25," answered the Wonder.

"What's that in shillin's?" asked Purvis.

"1.60416."

"Wrong!" returned the grocer triumphantly.

"Er--excuse me, Mr. Purvis," interposed Steven, "I think not.
The--the--er--examinee has given the correct mathematical answer to five
places of decimals--that is, so far as I can check him mentally."

"Well, it seems to me," persisted the grocer, "as he's gone a long way
round to answer a simple question what any fifth-standard child could do
in his head. I'll give him another."

"Cast it in another form," put in the chairman. "Give it as a
multiplication sum."

Purvis tucked his fingers carefully into his waistcoat pockets. "I put
the question, Mr. Chairman," he said, "as it'll be put to the youngster
when he has to tot up a bill. That seems to be a sound and practical
form for such questions to be put in."

Challis sighed impatiently. "I thought Mr. Steven had been delegated to
conduct the first part of the examination," he said. "It seems to me
that we are wasting a lot of time."

Elmer nodded. "Will you go on, Mr. Steven?" he said.

Challis was ashamed for his compeers. "What children we are," he
thought.

Steven got to work again with various arithmetical questions, which were
answered instantly, and then he made a sudden leap and asked: "What is
the binomial theorem?"

"A formula for writ