The poking was a total failure, and Priscilla, reaching far out to thrust the oar well under the keel of the boat, very nearly fell overboard. Frank caught her by the skirt at the last moment and hauled her back.
“We’ll have to sit down and think again,” she said. “By the way, what was that word which Euclid said when he suddenly found out how to construct an isosceles triangle? He was in his bath at the time, as well as I recollect.”
A man is not in the lower sixth at Haileybury without possessing a good working knowledge of the chief events of classical antiquity. Frank rose to his opportunity.
“Are you thinking of Archimedes?” he asked. “What he said was ‘Eureka’ and what he found out wasn’t anything about triangles but—”
“Thanks,” said Priscilla. “It doesn’t really matter whether it was Euclid or not and it isn’t of the least importance what he found out. It was the word I wanted. Let’s agree that whichever of us Eureka’s it first stands up and shouts the word far across the sea. You’ve no objection to that, I suppose. The idea may stimulate our imaginations.”
Frank had no objection. He felt tolerably certain that he would not have to shout. Priscilla, frowning heavily, fixed her eyes on the stone perch, A few minutes later she spoke again.
“Once,” she said, “I was riding my bicycle in father’s mackintosh, which naturally was a little long for me. In process of time the tail of it got wound round and round the back wheel and I was regularly stuck, couldn’t move hand or foot and had to lie on my side with the bicycle on top of me. That seems to me very much the way we are now with that anchor rope and the centreboard.”
“How did you get out?” said Frank hopefully.
That Priscilla had got out was evident. If her position on the bicycle was really analogous to that of the Tortoise the same plan of escape might perhaps be tried.
“I lay there,” said Priscilla, “until Peter Walsh happened to come along the road. He kind of unwound me.”