"Wrong!" returned the grocer triumphantly.
"Er—excuse me, Mr. Purvis," interposed Steven, "I think not. The—the—er—examinee has given the correct mathematical answer to five places of decimals—that is, so far as I can check him mentally."
"Well, it seems to me," persisted the grocer, "as he's gone a long way round to answer a simple question what any fifth-standard child could do in his head. I'll give him another."
"Cast it in another form," put in the chairman. "Give it as a multiplication sum."
Purvis tucked his fingers carefully into his waistcoat pockets. "I put the question, Mr. Chairman," he said, "as it'll be put to the youngster when he has to tot up a bill. That seems to be a sound and practical form for such questions to be put in."
Challis sighed impatiently. "I thought Mr. Steven had been delegated to conduct the first part of the examination," he said. "It seems to me that we are wasting a lot of time."
Elmer nodded. "Will you go on, Mr. Steven?" he said.
Challis was ashamed for his compeers. "What children we are," he thought.
Steven got to work again with various arithmetical questions, which were answered instantly, and then he made a sudden leap and asked: "What is the binomial theorem?"
"A formula for writing down the coefficient of any stated term in the expansion of any stated power of a given binomial," replied the Wonder.