"A friend of mine has a flower-garden—a very pretty one, though no great size—"
"How big is it?" said Hugh.
"That's what you have to find out!" Balbus gaily replied. "All I tell you is that it is oblong in shape—just half a yard longer than its width—and that a gravel-walk, one yard wide, begins at one corner and runs all round it."
"Joining into itself?" said Hugh.
"Not joining into itself, young man. Just before doing that, it turns a corner, and runs round the garden again, alongside of the first portion, and then inside that again, winding in and in, and each lap touching the last one, till it has used up the whole of the area."
"Like a serpent with corners?" said Lambert.
"Exactly so. And if you walk the whole length of it, to the last inch, keeping in the centre of the path, it's exactly two miles and half a furlong. Now, while you find out the length and breadth of the garden, I'll see if I can think out that sea-water puzzle."
"You said it was a flower-garden?" Hugh inquired, as Balbus was leaving the room.
"I did," said Balbus.
"Where do the flowers grow?" said Hugh. But Balbus thought it best not to hear the question. He left the boys to their problem, and, in the silence of his own room, set himself to unravel Hugh's mechanical paradox.