"Then you must be mystified," Bud argued.
"Suppose you have a difficult example to do at school, and finally after working at it a long time you have to confess you can't do it—does that mean it's a mystery and you are mystified?"
This was a poser for the boys. They had never looked at a subject of this kind on any such light.
"Cub, you're the highbrow of our bunch," said Hal after some moments of puzzled silence.
"Oh, get away with that stuff," Cub protested, but, somehow, a faint glimmer of satisfaction at the "compliment" shone in his countenance.
"No, I won't, either," Hal insisted. "It's true. This thing is too much for Bud and me. You've got to settle it for us."
Cub "swelled up" a little with importance at this admission. He was sitting in a camp chair with his feet resting on the taffrail, it being a habit of his to rest his feet on something higher than his head, if possible, whenever seated. Now, however, there seemed to be a demand for superior head-work, so he lowered his feet, straightened up his back, and said:
"Well."—speaking slowly—"I don't want to get in bad with my father by trying to prove I know more than he does, but my argument would be that all of life is not arithmetic."
"Good!" exclaimed Hal, eager to defend his belief in things mysterious, and Bud signified his approval in similar manner.
"Yes, that isn't bad at all," admitted Mr. Perry, glad to have stimulated his son's mind into action. "But if we can't explain this affair with mathematics, maybe we can explain it by some other element of human education."