“October, 1885. L. C.”
These are regular mathematical problems and “posers,” most of them, and it seems that the readers, being more or less ambitious, set to work in right good earnest to answer them, and sent in the solutions to the author under assumed names, and then he produced the real problem, the real answer, and all the best answers of the contestants. These problems were all called Knots and were told in the form of stories.
Knot I was called Excelsior. It was written as a tale of adventure, and ran as follows:
“The ruddy glow of sunset was already fading into the somber shadows of night, when two travelers might have been observed swiftly—at a pace of six miles in the hour—descending the rugged side of a mountain; the younger bounding from crag to crag with the agility of a fawn, while his companion, whose aged limbs seemed ill at ease in the heavy chain armor habitually worn by tourists in that district, toiled on painfully at his side.”
Lewis Carroll is evidently imitating the style of some celebrated writer—Henry James, most likely, who is rather fond of opening his story with “two travelers,” or perhaps Sir Walter Scott. He goes on:
“As is always the case under such circumstances, the younger knight was the first to break the silence.
“‘A goodly pace, I trow!’ he exclaimed. ‘We sped not thus in the ascent!’
“‘Goodly, indeed!’ the other echoed with a groan. ‘We clomb it but at three miles in the hour.’
“‘And on the dead level our pace is—?’ the younger suggested; for he was weak in statistics, and left all such details to his aged companion.
“‘Four miles in the hour,’ the other wearily replied. ‘Not an ounce more,’ he added, with that love of metaphor so common in old age, ‘and not a farthing less!’