“I see!” said Lady Muriel, as she deftly executed the order. “And a very twisted, uncomfortable, uncanny-looking bag it makes! But the moral is a lovely one. Unlimited wealth can only be attained by doing things in the wrong way! And how are we to join up these mysterious—no, I mean this mysterious opening?” (twisting the thing round and round with a puzzled air.) “Yes, it is one opening. I thought it was two, at first.”
“You have seen the puzzle of the Paper Ring?” Mein Herr said, addressing the Earl. “Where you take a slip of paper, and join its ends together, first twisting one, so as to join the upper corner of one end to the lower corner of the other?”
“I saw one made, only yesterday,” the Earl replied. “Muriel, my child, were you not making one, to amuse those children you had to tea?”
“Yes, I know that Puzzle,” said Lady Muriel. “The Ring has only one surface, and only one edge. It’s very mysterious!”
“The bag is just like that, isn’t it?” I suggested. “Is not the outer surface of one side of it continuous with the inner surface of the other side?”
“So it is!” she exclaimed. “Only it isn’t a bag, just yet. How shall we fill up this opening, Mein Herr?”
“Thus!” said the old man impressively, taking the bag from her, and rising to his feet in the excitement of the explanation. “The edge of the opening consists of four handkerchief-edges, and you can trace it continuously, round and round the opening: down the right edge of one handkerchief, up the left edge of the other, and then down the left edge of the one, and up the right edge of the other!”
“So you can!” Lady Muriel murmured thoughtfully, leaning her head on her hand, and earnestly watching the old man. “And that proves it to be only one opening!”
FORTUNATUS’ PURSE