“But it is so, Miss Farley!” exclaimed Philip Van Reypen. “You’ve struck it! Look, people!”
He turned to a bookcase, and indicated three volumes of a set of books.
“Now, see, the first page of volume one is right against the last page of volume two. So the first page of volume two is up against the last page of volume three. Now, what does Mr. Bookworm do? He starts here, at the first page of volume one. He doesn’t go backward, so he doesn’t go through volume one at all! He goes through volume two, and, as soon as he strikes volume three, he strikes it at the last page, and his task is done, his journey is over. He has fulfilled the conditions of the original question. See?”
They did see, after awhile, but it was only the ocular demonstration that proved it, for the facts were hard to describe in words.
Elise flatly refused to see it, saying it made her head ache to try to understand it.
“But it was very clever of Miss Farley to reason it out so soon,” said Philip.
“Yes, wasn’t it?” agreed Patty. “I didn’t know you had a bent for puzzles, Christine.”
“I haven’t. But that doesn’t seem to me like a puzzle. I can’t do arithmetical problems, or guess charades at all. But this seems to me a picture of still life. I can see the insides of the books in my mind, and they are wrong end to,—that is, compared to the way we read them. You see, they really stand in the bookcase with the pages numbered backward.”
“Bravo, Christine; so they do!” said Mr. Hepworth. “Patty, that’s the answer, but, I confess, I was ’way off myself.”
“So say we all of us,” chimed in Roger. “I can only see through it, part of the time, even now.”