people outside. I don't like to ask them, because they would think
it was so strange that I didn't know; but it is different with you.
You have come in here, and I can ask you things that I wouldn't ask of
people outside."

"If they want to know things," said Kathleen, "why don't they go to
school themselves?"

"I don't know that, either," said Terence, "but they seem to expect me
to go to school for all of them. I think that is what I am here for.
Before I was old enough to go to school at all they used to bring me
things to eat from outside, because, you know, if I ate anything of
theirs I never could go out. Then as soon as I was old enough to go to
school, they sent me, and I came back every night, and they gave me
money to buy all my own food outside, and I have done that ever since,
and I have never eaten a bit of the Good People's food."

"And don't you like to stay here?" Kathleen asked. "It seems to me a
very beautiful place."

"No," said Terence; "they are very kind to me, but I think that I
should like to live outside better, and I hope that I shall some time.
And then, you see, if I ate anything here I could not go out to go to
school, and so I could not teach them. And it is all so strange. It
almost makes me cry, it is such a bother sometimes, and then they are
so sorry about it themselves and I am so sorry for them, and it almost
makes me laugh sometimes, because they can never learn anything. You
will see. I think it is time now."

Some of the men were taking away the tables. "It is time for the
lesson," the King called out. Some of the other men brought in a big
blackboard and set it up. Everybody stopped talking and laughing and
stood near the blackboard. Terence made some lines and some letters on
the board, with a piece of chalk.

"I shall have to try again," said Terence, "to prove to you the same
thing that I tried to prove to you last night. But I'll try a
different way, and maybe you'll see it better. Now mind, what I am to
prove is this: if any triangle has two sides equal, the angles
opposite those sides are also equal."

"And what difference does it make if they're equal or not?" said one
of the men who stood near Kathleen.

"Be still there," the King said; "do we want to make telephones or do
we not? And sure we can't make telephones without geometry. Hasn't
Terence told you that?"

Terence went on: "Let ABC be any triangle in which the sides AB and AC
are equal."

"How can it