“There again you’re wrong,” persisted the implacable Joe. “It’s all right for you to have double what we have, but where does Bob come in to have two to our one? We didn’t rob him of a doughnut.”
Now poor Jimmy was puzzled indeed. It was clear to him that if the pie were cut in five pieces, of which he had two, he would have an unfair advantage over Bob. There was no reason why he should have twice what Bob had. On the other hand if it were cut in six pieces, of which Bob had two, Bob for no reason whatever would have twice as much as Herb or Joe. How could the pie be cut so that Bob would have his fair share and no more and yet Jimmy have twice as much as either Herb or Joe? Into exactly how many equal pieces must it be divided so that justice might be done?
Perhaps some of our young readers might be puzzled to answer the question. Jimmy certainly was. So much so in fact that he made a virtue of necessity and decided to be generous.
“Oh, all right,” he said with a magnificent gesture. “Cut it into four equal pieces and let it go at that. I’ll get even with you fellows some other way.”
“How sweet of you,” replied Joe, grinning, hastening to grab his quarter before Jimmy should repent of his offer. “Only I’m not sure whether this is softness of heart or softness of brain. You’d never have done it if you hadn’t got mixed up in your figuring.”
Jimmy tried to think of some crushing retort, but by that time he had started to eat the pie, and he put his whole attention so thoroughly on the work that less important things were forgotten.
The next afternoon, as Bob was going down to his father’s store, he ran across Dr. Dale. After the doctor had made inquiries as to how Mr. Layton was progressing, Bob asked him:
“By the way, Doctor, were you listening in at WJZ last night?”
“No, I wasn’t,” replied the doctor. “Was there anything that was especially interesting?”
“We found it so,” responded Bob, and then proceeded to give an outline of the talk of the forest ranger.