"Therefore two persons at least must have the same number of hairs on their heads; and as the number of people on the earth so greatly exceeds the number of hairs on any one person's head, there must, of course, be an immense number of these repetitions."
"But, Mr. Filkins," said little Willie Allgood, "why could not the millionth man have, say, ten thousand hairs and a half?"
"That is mere hair-splitting, Willie, and does not come into the question."
"Here is a curious paradox," said George. "If a thousand soldiers are drawn up in battle array on a plane"—they understood him to mean "plain"—"only one man will stand upright."
Nobody could see why. But George explained that, according to Euclid, a plane can touch a sphere only at one point, and that person only who stands at that point, with respect to the centre of the earth, will stand upright.
"In the same way," he remarked, "if a billiard-table were quite level—that is, a perfect plane—the balls ought to roll to the centre."
Though he tried to explain this by placing a visiting-card on an orange and expounding the law of gravitation, Mrs. Allgood declined to accept the statement. She could not see that the top of a true billiard-table must, theoretically, be spherical, just like a portion of the orange-peel that George cut out. Of course, the table is so small in proportion to the surface of the earth that the curvature is not appreciable, but it is nevertheless true in theory. A surface that we call level is not the same as our idea of a true geometrical plane.
"Uncle John," broke in Willie Allgood, "there is a certain island situated between England and France, and yet that island is farther from France than England is. What is the island?"
"That seems absurd, my boy; because if I place this tumbler, to represent the island, between these two plates, it seems impossible that the tumbler can be farther from either of the plates than they are from each other."
"But isn't Guernsey between England and France?" asked Willie.