It was some time before I was free from that nightmare and could forget Pythagoras and his three squares. In the long run, however, Time, who with his sponge wipes out so many things from the book of memory, had nearly effaced this; when, a few weeks ago, the ill-omened figure appeared to me in one of my son’s exercise-books.
“Has this curse been transmitted to my descendants?” I exclaimed. “Poor boy! What if the theorem of Pythagoras should be as fatal to him as it has been to me?”
I thought I would question him about it on his return from school.
“So,” I began gravely, “you have already reached the forty-seventh proposition of Euclid in your geometry?”
“Yes, father,” he replied simply.
“A difficult theorem,” I added, shaking my head.
“Do you think so?” he asked with a smile.
“Oh! you want to boast and make me think you find it easy?”
“But I do find it easy.”