"I say," he began, "that yarn about your grandmother was very interesting. It is an extraordinary combination of coincidences. I can see it in the Sunday paper with a scare-head—
'SIXTEEN YEARS WITHOUT A BIRTHDAY!'
Do you mind my using it?"
"But it isn't true," said the professor.
"Not true?" echoed the journalist.
"No," replied the mathematician. "I made it up. I hadn't done my share of the talking, and I didn't want you to think I had nothing to say for myself."
"Not a single word of truth in it?" the journalist returned.
"Not a single word," was the mathematician's answer.
"Well, what of that?" the journalist declared. "I don't want to file it in an affidavit—I want to print it in a newspaper."
(1894.)