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 he 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 entangled 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."