“Because it is too much like the C I have made already. I was going to put an H instead of it.”

“What a subtle idea!” observed Roveni, with his usual irony. “Have you finished?”

“Yes, sir,” said I; adding under my breath, “More’s the pity!”

“Come,—why are you standing there moonstruck? Enunciate the theorem!”

Then began my sorrows. The terms of the question had escaped my memory.

“In a triangle ...” I stammered.

“Go on.”

I took courage and said all I knew.

“In a triangle ... the square of the hypothenuse is equal to the squares of the other two sides.”

“In any triangle?”