FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153  
154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   >>   >|  
ngles all get mixed up with the sides, and it is all such a muddle. I shall never learn Euclid. Is it any use?" "Is it any use!" cried the tutor scornfully. "Look at me, sir. Has it been any use to me!" Dexter looked at the face before him, and then right up the forehead, and wondered whether learning Euclid had made all the hair come off the top of his head. "Well, go on." "I can't, sir, please," sighed the boy. "I know it's something about squares, and _ABC_, and _BAC_, and _CAB_, and--but you produce the lines." "But you do not produce them, sir," cried Mr Limpney angrily; "nor anything else! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, sir!" "I am," said Dexter innocently. "I'm a dreadfully stupid boy, sir, and I don't think I've got any brains." "Are you going through that forty-seventh problem this morning, sir?" Dexter made a desperate attempt, floundered on a quarter of a minute, and broke down in half. "Tut--tut--tut!" ejaculated Mr Limpney. "I'm sure you have not looked at it since I was here." "That I have, sir," cried Dexter, in a voice full of eager protest. "Hours and hours, sir, I walked up and down the garden with it, and then I took the book up with me into my loft, and made a chalk triangle on the floor, and kept on saying it over and over, but as fast as I said it the words slipped out of my head again. I can't help it, sir, I am so stupid." "Algebra!" said Mr Limpney, in a tone of angry disgust. "Am I not to try and say the Euclid, sir?" "Algebra!" cried Mr Limpney again, and he slapped the table with a thin book. "Now then, where are these simple equations?" Dexter drew a half-sheet of foolscap paper from a folio, and rather shrinkingly placed it before his tutor, who took a pair of spectacles from his pocket, and placed them over his mild-looking eyes. "Let me see," he said, referring to a note-book. "The questions I gave you were: `A spent 2 shillings and 6 pence in oranges, and says that three of them cost as much under a shilling as nine of them cost over a shilling. How many did he buy?'" Mr Limpney coughed, blew his nose loudly, as if it were a post-horn, and then went on-- "Secondly: `Two coaches start at the same time for York and London, a distance of 200 miles, travelling one at nine and a half miles an hour, the other at nine and a quarter miles; where will they meet, and in what time from starting?'" He gave his nose a finishing touch with his
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153  
154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Limpney
 

Dexter

 

Euclid

 

produce

 

shilling

 
Algebra
 
quarter
 

stupid

 
looked
 

pocket


spectacles

 

referring

 
shillings
 

muddle

 
questions
 

shrinkingly

 
simple
 
equations
 

foolscap

 

disgust


slapped

 

travelling

 

distance

 

London

 

starting

 

finishing

 

coaches

 

coughed

 

Secondly

 

loudly


oranges

 
dreadfully
 

innocently

 

ashamed

 

seventh

 
problem
 

learning

 
brains
 

sighed

 
squares

angrily
 

morning

 
desperate
 
triangle
 

walked

 

garden

 
scornfully
 

slipped

 
protest
 

wondered